The flight tests of the American promising intercontinental ballistic missile (MBR) Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) are scheduled for 2023, reports Popular Mechanics magazine.
Edition, calling a new weapon “Armageddon’s sword,” reminds that it will replace the current ICBM LGM-30G Minuteman III – the ground component of the US nuclear triad. The GBSD program involves financing at $ 61 billion for the next ten years.
Edition writes that the strategic rocket created by Northrop Grumman “will provide a rapid response nuclear weapon delivery system that can hit almost any point on Earth in a matter of minutes.”
According to the magazine, the development of GBSD is at the “critical test of the design” subsystems. It is specified that the creation of weapons comes with the use of digital technologies. In particular, only six billion dollars were spent on the selection of the optimal configuration of the new rocket on the computer.
Popular Mechanics reminds that the US Air Force (Air Force) is planning to purchase 400 GBSD units, each of which will be equipped with a thermalide coherelet W87-1 with a capacity of 335 – 350,000 kilotonne in TNT equivalent.
The high cost of the program faces criticism of its opponents offering, in particular, to upgrade the old LGM-30G Minuteman III.
In May, Edition Defense News, referring to the statement of General Timothy Ray, reported that the creation of the United States as part of the GBSD program of the new ICBM to replace LGM-30G Minuteman III, which is in service with 1970, will cost $ 38 billion cheaper than Support last to 2075.
In October 2019, the Washington Post newspaper wrote that the American military-industrial company Northrop Grumman was the only applicant for the contract for the creation of GBSD for the Pentagon.