Air Force awards contract for its Next-Generation Penetrator bunker-buster bomb

The U.S. Air Force’s GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, used recently in American strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, is the largest and most powerful bunker-busting bomb in history – but maybe not for much longer – because the US Air Force just awarded the contract to build its successor, currently known only as the Next-Generation Penetrator, or NGP. 

News of this contract award was first announced by New Mexico-based Defense contractor Applied Research Associates, but we first learned of this announcement via The Warzone. 

The Air Force’s current bunker-buster bomb, the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, is a GPS-guided weapon that consists of a BLU-127 warhead case and a KMU-612 tail kit that houses the GPS navigation hardware, just like you’d find in America’s JDAMs or Joint Direct Attack Munitions. The tail has four active lattice fins that deploy when the weapon is dropped and are powered by separate actuators to guide the bomb into its target with a high degree of precision. The MOP has no means of onboard propulsion or fuel storage needs.

At only around 20.5 feet long and with a diameter of roughly 31.5 inches, the GBU-57/AB MOP is only a little bigger than a Tomahawk Cruise missile, but weighs nearly 10 times as much at roughly 27,125 pounds. Of that weight, more than 5,300 pounds is explosives made up of around 4,590 pounds of AFX-757 and 752 pounds of PBXN-114. AFX-757 is a propellent-like plastic explosive compound developed specifically to maximize blast energy output for bunker-busting applications. Despite the MOP’s massive weight, the warhead itself represents only about 20% of that. The remaining 20,000 pounds are due to the weapon’s immensely dense and hardened fuselage that is designed to bore directly through even the most secure underground structures.

The Next Generation Penetrator will be designed and built by Applied Research Associates in cooperation with Boeing. Applied Research Associates will focus on designing and producing sub-scale and full-sized prototype weapons for testing, and Boeing will focus on the new guidance section and tail kit integration. That may be the most important part, as this new bunker buster is expected to offer an incredible degree of accuracy even in GPS-degraded or denied environments. And as we’ve seen in test footage, the existing MOP is already accurate enough to hit the traffic cone marking the target coordinates from tens of thousands of feet up. 

The Air Force wants the NGP’s warhead to come in under 22,000 pounds, although we don’t know how large the weapon will be. The MOP can currently only be deployed from the B-2 Spirit, and the the NGP will likely be carried by the slightly smaller B-21 Raider, so it’s possible that we may even see an effort to increase penetration while reducing overall weight (potentially by giving the weapon its own means of propulsion in contrast to its predecessor).

The Air Force intends to be testing full-scale prototypes of this new bunker buster within the next two years. 

Feature Image: A B-2 Spirit drops a GBU-57 MOP. (U.S. Air Force photo)

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