Bloomberg.com
October 2, 2009
Boeing Gets $51.9 Million Job For 30,000-Pound Bomb
By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News
Boeing Co. has received a $51.9 million contract to make minor modifications to the U.S. Defense Department’s largest bomb so it can be carried on the B-2 stealth bomber, the Pentagon said today.
The Pentagon was to accelerate by three years the deployment of a 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb, a request that reflects growing unease over nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea. The Air Force today put $32.1 million of the money under contract, the Pentagon said. The first bombs will be delivered next year.
The bomb would be the U.S. military’s largest and six times bigger than the 5,000-pound bunker buster that is in the Air Force inventory for use against deeply buried nuclear, biological or chemical sites.
Ashton Carter, undersecretary for acquisition, said in an interview today the weapon has been under development "a long time because around the world the prevalence of deeply buried targets has been a growing concern and people have been looking at solutions."
The bomb is "responsive to an emerging strategic need," Carter said.
The new 20.5-foot-long bomb carries more than 5,300 pounds of explosives and is guided by Global Positioning Satellites, according to a description on the Web site of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.