Northrop on Notice to Fix Missile Snags : * Defense: The L.A. contractor is ordered to quickly solve a problem with the $15.1-billion Stealth cruise missile program.
The Defense Department disclosed Tuesday that a major new missile being developed for the B-2 bomber and other warplanes does not work properly and ordered its manufacturer, Northrop Corp., to fix it.
Disclosure of a defect in the classified Standoff Attack Missile creates a new problem for the embattled B-2 bomber, which is also made by Los Angeles-based Northrop. The missile is the sole precision weapon that B-2 pilots could use in non-nuclear combat, an increasingly important consideration as the Cold War fades from view.
The B-2, already under attack because of its $865-million-per-copy price tag, came under fresh criticism on Capitol Hill last week after defense officials revealed that a prototype had failed a recent test of its Stealth, or radar-evading, features. That news closely followed a disclosure of cracks in the aft deck of another B-2 prototype plane.
The Air Force, sensing what one official called “potential imminent disaster” for the bomber program, sent Secretary Donald B. Rice, Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill A. McPeak and Strategic Air Commander Gen. George Lee Butler to press the case for the plane in a closed briefing for members of the Senate Armed Services Committee late Tuesday.
The Standoff Attack Missile is also being developed for four other U.S. planes and for launch from the ground by Army troops. It is the first conventionally armed missile to include Stealth features and was designed to provide an accurate alternative to nuclear weapons for repulsing a massive Soviet attack against Western Europe, according to several congressional sources.
Its availability for the B-2 was a key selling point for the bomber in the wake of the success of the F-117, a Stealth tactical fighter, in firing precision-guided missiles at vital Iraqi targets during the Persian Gulf War.
Rice said at a news conference Tuesday that the manufacturer of the cruise-type missile, designed to be slung from an aircraft and released in flight, has been having trouble with the explosive-release mechanism that attaches the missile to the plane.
Rice said Northrop’s troubles with the missile are not “something that need disturb the program greatly,” although the problem could lead to postponement of the Air Force request for money to fund production of the weapon in the fiscal 1992 defense budget.
“It probably will affect . . . whether we’re ready for any significant amount of production money,” Rice said. “What we have to do is get a new subcontractor who is more expert in these kinds of activities.”
A Northrop spokesman, Michael Greywitt, said the company expects to submit a repair plan this month “and to . . . complete the program successfully on the contract completion date,” which he declined to specify.
The $15.1-billion missile program, partly declassified in June to deflect charges that the B-2 could not match the capability of the F-117, calls for Northrop to eventually deliver 8,650 missiles. The Pentagon’s order, formally known as a “cure notice,” requires Northrop to provide a plan for repairing the missile defect and lays the legal groundwork for potential sanctions against the firm if necessary, officials said.
