Northrop Grumman nets $3.8B contract for Minuteman III support

July 12 (UPI) -- Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $306 million five-year contract to continue support of the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile system, with the deal potentially worth $3.86 billion over 18 years, the company announced.

The U.S. Defense Department, through the Air Force, awarded the contract last week for "Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile ground subsystems support," according to a press release.

The support includes "sustaining engineering, maintenance engineering, test and assessment, modification of systems and equipment, software maintenance, developmental engineering, production engineering, repair and procurement" of the 50-year-old missile system.

Known as the LGM-30, the Minuteman III entered service in 1970, and is based on Minuteman I and II missiles which date to 1962.

The Northrop Grumman statement notes that the program is the world's oldest strategic ballistic missile system.

The company has been its prime ground support contractor since 1995.

The Minuteman III program is scheduled to end its service life in 2040, immediately after the new indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract will expire, assuming extensions to the five-year base contract.

The missile is the only land-based U.S. ICBM in service and represents the one leg -- with Trident submarine-launched nuclear weapons and nuclear armaments launched by long-range strategic bombers -- of the U.S. nuclear triad. Land-based missiles are stored in protected underground silos.

"Northrop Grumman brings proven performance, a highly skilled team of experts, and a continued commitment to ensuring Minuteman III weapon system operational readiness for the U.S. Air Force," Greg Manuel, sector vice president and general manager of strategic deterrent systems division at Northrop Grumman, said in a company statement on Monday.

The Minuteman III is scheduled to be progressively replaced by the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent ICBM, which currently under development by Northrop Grumman, beginning in 2027.