Northrop Grumman sold the U.S. Air Force one of the company’s test B-21 Raiders as part of an effort to accelerate production of the 6th generation stealth bomber.
“To support the acceleration of aircraft deliveries, we agreed to sell an aircraft to the Air Force that was previously planned to be utilized as a company-owned test asset,” John Greene, Northrop Grumman’s chief financial officer, said last week during an earnings call. “The asset sale accelerated revenue into the quarter, but does not change the total number of aircraft we expect to deliver on the LRIP [low-rate initial production] phase of the program.”
Fiscal 2026 reconciliation included $4.5 billion for the B-21, and Northrop Grumman said in February that it and the Air Force have agreed to increase the bomber’s production capacity by 25%, as the first B-21 prepares to field at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., next year. For the B-21 in fiscal 2027, the Air Force’s budget includes $3.2 billion in procurement and $2.9 billion in research and development.
The B-21 is designed to have the dual capability of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons, which the National Nuclear Security Administration is responsible for producing and maintaining. As of October 2024, the 2025 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan said that the B61-12 life extension program, which completed its last production unit in December 2024, is continuing to certify the B-21 to carry the gravity bomb.
Five low-rate initial production lots cover the first 21 B-21s, and the next 19 bombers will be contracted under “not-to-exceed” terms already set at a higher price than the low-rate initial production work work, Northrop Grumman has said.
The Air Force’s plans have called for 100 B-21s, yet B-21 backers are pushing for an increase to 145 or more, due to the aging B-52 fleet and the coming retirements of the B-2 Spirit and the B-1Bs.
Northrop Grumman said on Tuesday that the company’s first quarter 2026 sales increased 4% to $9.9 billion, compared to $9.5 billion in last year’s first quarter, and that net earnings in the first quarter of this year were $875 million, compared to $481 million in the same period a year ago.
Sales at the company’s Aeronautics Systems sector increased by $469 million – 17% – from $2.8 billion to $3.3 billion, and the defense and mission systems sectors also saw sales growth rates of 5% and 2%, respectively.
The 5% sales growth in the company’s defense sector was “primarily due to higher volume on the Sentinel ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] as that program continues to ramp, as well as higher volume on tactical solid rocket motor programs and across the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) portfolio,” the company said.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published a version of this story.