Overview
- On Sept. 14, teams completed Pathfinder by transporting, vertically stacking and later de‑stacking an inert LGM‑35A at Vandenberg to prove transport, crane and pad‑interface procedures.
- Northrop Grumman and the Air Force’s 719th Test Squadron finished the first flight‑test Critical Design Review, which officials say shows the missile’s design and hardware are mature enough to proceed toward a 2027 live launch.
- The Pathfinder used inert hardware with no fuel or warhead so the exercise tested handling and mechanical interfaces without flight propulsion, guidance or reentry performance.
- Program leaders continue restructuring after a 2024 Nunn‑McCurdy cost breach and say they will seek Milestone B recertification while work proceeds on prototype silos and ground‑support designs.
- Major risks remain from the scale of infrastructure work, supply‑chain limits and workforce needs for replacing roughly 450 silos and fielding hundreds of missiles, and those constraints will shape the timeline to early‑2030s initial capability.