Air Force to host industry day for Mk21A development contract

The Air Force plans to host an industry day Feb. 4 for the prime contract to develop the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missile's Mk21A re-entry vehicles.

The event will take place at Hill Air Force Base, UT, where the service will provide a classified briefing to attendees, according to a notice released Tuesday.

As the only company performing technology-maturation and risk-reduction work for the Mk21A program, Lockheed Martin is all but certain to win the prime contract for the engineering, manufacturing and development phase.

It's unclear when the Air Force will finalize a solicitation for this stage of the program, but the service issued a notice last month announcing it will award the contract no later than the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023.

Meanwhile, the Air Force expects to conduct a preliminary design review in March of Lockheed's Mk21A solution -- an important step on the path to milestone B approval to begin EMD.

The program is slated to reach initial operational capability in FY-30 to support fielding of the new GBSD system, which replaces the aging Minuteman III ICBM capability.