The US Air Force (USAF) is ramping up funding to replace the Boeing LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM with a Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program.
In the White House's fiscal year 2017 (FY 2017) budget request, the programme would delay GBSD's previously noted fielding date from FY 2027 to FY 2028, and postpone its 'Milestone B' decision to begin an engineering and manufacturing development phase from March 2019 to June 2020, according to USAF budget documents released on 9 February.
For research, development, test and evaluation, GBSD was requested to receive USD 113.9 million in FY 2017, USD 294 million in FY 2018, and USD 321.1 million in FY 2019, then jump up to USD 1.034 billion in FY 2020, and USD 1.576 billion in FY 2021.
GBSD - previously known as Minuteman IV - is expected to be a high-cost effort and officials are seeking savings wherever possible; one possible area is finding commonality with future US Navy (USN) submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).
"In terms of commonality, I have signed a letter along with [USN acquisition executive] Sean Stackley and [USAF acquisition executive] William LaPlante such that we do look at a common approach where we can associate with a future missile," Admiral Cecil Haney, head of US Strategic Command, told reporters late last year.
ICBMs and SLBMs are somewhat different systems, but commonality is possible in the warhead - and some work on that has been done already - and common approaches are possible for certain components on the missile. "These are discussions that are starting, it's not matured but it's work that's ongoing right now," Adm Haney said.