Secret Work by Northrop on Missile Told

Northrop Corp. has been working in total secrecy for five years at its Hawthorne operations on a $15.1-billion program to develop the nation’s most advanced Stealth missile, the Pentagon disclosed Thursday.

The cruise missile, known as the tri-service standoff attack missile, could be launched from the ground or the air at heavily defended targets, and is “stealthier than anything else that we have in the inventory,” said Defense Department spokesman Pete Williams.

Although the existence of the missile was disclosed, few details about the program were released. But defense industry sources estimated that as many as several thousand workers are assigned to the program at Northrop alone. Employment would be likely to rise once the missile goes into production, which would be shared with Boeing.

The Pentagon’s announcement comes on the eve of a weeklong effort to shore up support for costly Stealth weaponry.

Although military officials hope the missile’s unveiling will bolster support for the B-2 Stealth bomber program, some experts said the cruise missile’s ability to penetrate air defenses raises new questions about the need for the embattled B-2.

Disclosure of the program’s scope and of the jobs and revenue it could generate are likely to cast Northrop’s financial situation in a more positive light after recent setbacks.

Williams’ announcement came as the Pentagon prepared for “Stealth Week,” a weeklong program of displays and briefings in Washington. The congressionally mandated celebration is being held to solicit support among lawmakers for costly equipment like the B-2, which is designed to sneak undetected past hostile air defenses.

The TSSAM will be on display in Washington next week, but only for lawmakers and government officials with ultra-top-secret security clearances. The Pentagon was unwilling Thursday to disclose the features of the missile or to release photographs of the engine-driven craft.

“The timing is perfect to take advantage of the euphoria in this country about the effectiveness of smart weapons in the Persian Gulf War,” said Rear Adm. Gene LaRocque, director of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. “While the music of the marching bands is still fresh in our ears, this is a good time to hit up Congress for money.”

The Air Force said that funding for the missile program already is contained in its budget request for the 1992 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, and in projected budgets for future years.

The new missile is designed to be launched from the Army’s Multiple-Launch Rocket System; the Navy’s A-6 fighter-bomber and F/A-18 fighter-attack plane, and the Air Force’s B-2 Stealth bomber, the B-52 bomber, and the F-16 fighter-jet, Williams said. The development of the weapon began in the mid-1980s.

The armed services plan to build a total of 8,650 TSSAMs, which would cost about $1.7 million apiece. That would make the TSSAM the single most expensive non-nuclear missile in the U.S. arsenal, beating out the Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile, which costs $1.3 million each.

Unlike a ballistic missile, which falls freely after it is launched into flight, a cruise missile is powered all the way to its target by a small engine. The Navy has built the Tomahawk, which can carry a nuclear or conventional warhead, and the Air Force has built nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. But the TSSAM would be the Army’s first such missile, and the first such Air Force weapon armed with a conventional high-explosive warhead.

The Air Force, which is managing the three-service program, has unveiled the new conventional missile at a time when it is fighting to preserve the $65-billion B-2 bomber program from termination at the hands of Congress.

Senior Air Force officials, citing the effectiveness of the F-117 Stealth fighter in the Gulf War, have begun touting the potential use of the B-2 to deliver conventional weapons in regional conflicts. The B-2 originally was designed to deliver nuclear weapons into heavily defended Soviet airspace.

The House already has voted to terminate the B-2 program at 15 aircraft. As the Senate takes up debate on the aircraft, news of the Stealth missile program is expected to raise troubling new questions.

“They’re going to say this is further indication of the Stealth bomber’s conventional capabilities, but it totally contradicts the Air Force’s entire rationale” for deploying the B-2 as a conventional bomber, said John Pike, a defense analyst with the Federation of American Scientists.

“The Air Force has been telling us that with the B-2’s Stealth characteristics, you could go straight downtown and shovel bombs out the back end of the plane without fear of being detected. Now, they’re telling us that it’s important to equip the B-2 with a missile designed for aircraft that aren’t expected to penetrate air defenses,” Pike said.

Healy reported from Washington and Vartabedian from Los Angeles.