The U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman unveiled the latest stealth aircraft called the B-21 Raider on Friday at the company’s facility in Palmdale, California.

“The B-21 is the most advanced military aircraft ever built and is a product of pioneering innovation and technological excellence,” Dough Young, sector vice president and general manager at Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems said in a press release. “The Raider showcases the dedication and skills of the thousands of people working every day to deliver this aircraft.”

The B-21 was made using advanced manufacturing techniques and breakthrough stealth technology. It is a sixth-generation aircraft, which Northrop Corporate President Tom Jones said is “optimized for operations in highly contested environments.”

The next-generation stealthy long-range strategic bomber is designed to eventually replace the ageing B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit aircraft and become the backbone of the US Air Force’s bomber fleet.

The 34-year-old B-2 Spirit was a generation ahead of its time. The advanced materials coating the aircraft, combined with the shape of the airframe and engine inlets, meant its radar signature was minute, rendering it virtually “invisible” to radar.

This allowed the aircraft to conduct long-range strike missions in highly-defended areas with a good chance of surviving the mission, something other bombers, like the B-1 and the venerable B-52 would have little chance of succeeding at.

The B-21 Raider clearly draws a lot of its designs from its predecessor, such as the flying wing concept with its engines embedded and configured to efficiently reduce its radar signature.

China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its gains in hypersonics, cyber warfare, space capabilities and other areas present "the most consequential and systemic challenge to U.S. national security and the free and open international system,” the Pentagon said this week in its annual China report.

“We needed a new bomber for the 21st Century that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia,” said Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary when the Raider contract was announced in 2015. “The B-21 is more survivable and can take on these much more difficult threats.”

The estimated cost to develop, purchase and operate 100 aircraft is estimated at $203 billion, or about $2 billion per plane.

Currently, the company has six aircraft being assembled in Palmdale and the first B-21 is set to take flight sometime in 2023, depending on ground test results.

Image source: Reuters