Pentagon’s No.1 weapons supplier Lockheed Martin Corp has been awarded a new million contract by the U.S. Air Force for the Mk21A Reentry Vehicle (RV) program.
The contract, announced Wednesday by the Department of Defense, is worth more than $108 million and to conduct technology maturation and risk reduction to provide a low technical risk and affordable RV capable of delivering the W87-1 warhead from the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent Weapon System.
The major activities in the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) phase of the Mk21A RV program include 1)Government system engineering, analytics, and test capability development, 2) RV Risk Reduction, and 3) Weapon System Integration Risk Reduction.
Reentry vehicle components include a high velocity nosetip, high impulse transducer, fuze, aeroshell forward section, body section and rear cover, radio frequency subsystem with antennas, RV spin-up system, inflight disconnect cable and other electrical cables.
The MK21A program will include prime contractor development of applicable support equipment, data, flight test hardware, infrastructure, training materials while examining and mitigating weapon system integration risks, and any needed nuclear surety and certification and system vulnerability assessments.
Work will be performed at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and other various locations as needed, and is expected to be completed by October 2022.