Live airdrop testing on a new conventional penetrator weapon began earlier this year, with one live drop already carried out by a B-52 in January, said Harry Heimple, Northrop Grumman’s manager of government requirements, Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium. Air Force Research Lab’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin AFB, Fla., is overseeing the Defense Threat Reduction Agency massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) program, which Boeing is developing to produce a 30,000-pound conventional weapon that would hold hardened deep buried targets at risk. It is intended to be employed by the B-52 and, ultimately, Northrop’s B-2. Speaking with Daily Report on the program’s status, Heimple said a second test scheduled for March would utilize a B-52 as well. As of today, the Air Force has funding for integration and testing the weapon on the B-2 in its 2010 program objective memorandum, but there is an effort underway to speed up testing for the transition to the B-2 program. Heimple said that would ensure the engineering and integration workforce is not idled too long.
Let’s Put the ‘Tech’ into Military Technology Policy
April 3, 2025
“Power projection is more than projecting military might—a nation’s economic power is the foundation of its capacity to project national power. And technological development is an important component of that power,” write former Chief Scientist of the Air Force Victoria Coleman and Prof. H.S. Philip Wong.