Boeing steps-up testing of Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) 30,000-pound bunker-busting super bomb
EGLIN AFB, Fla., 9 Feb. 2011. Explosives experts at the Boeing Co. Space, Defense & Security segment in St. Louis are stepping up their efforts to qualify the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) 30,000-pound bunker-busting super bomb for deployment, with a contract to develop a modified fuse design, as well as for additional flight tests, and test assets.Boeing [NYSE: BA] won a $15.2 million contract modification, announced Tuesday, for additional Massive Ordnance Penetrator integration to include flight test support, three additional test assets, an alternative/modified fuse design, and 16 fuses. Awarding the contract were officials of the U.S. Air Force Air Armament Center's MOP Tiger Team at Eglin Air Force base, Fla.Boeing is developing the Massive Ordnance Penetrator at its facilities in St. Charles, Mo., for the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The bomb is for deployment on the Air Force B-2 and B-52 bombers from high altitudes to destroy hard and deeply buried targets such as hardened concrete bunkers and tunnel facilities. The huge airborne explosive is fitted with a Global Positioning System navigation system and as much as 6,000 pounds of explosives.The B-2 could carry two of the bombs, and the B-52 program is designing the carriage and release equipment for the B-2. Boeing completed a static tunnel lethality test of the MOP munition in March 2007 at DTRA's weapons tunnel complex at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.The Massive Ordnance Penetrator super bomb was developed amid heightening worldwide concern of the mounting capability to build and deploy nuclear weapons in countries such as Iran and North Korea that are openly hostile to the United States.
The conventional Massive Ordnance Penetrator is 20 feet long, weighs 30,000 pounds, and carries 6,000-pounds of high explosives. It is designed to penetrate targets more deeply on impact than any existing nuclear bunker-busting weapon, and then detonating its three-ton explosives payload.
An explosion from the gigantic air-dropped munition is expected to penetrate as deeply as 200 feet through reinforced concrete, which is able to withstand pressure of 5,000 pounds per square inch. The bomb will burrow more than 26 feet into the ground through reinforced concrete before detonating.
For more information contact Boeing Space, Defense & Security online at www.boeing.com/bds, or the Air Force Air Armament Center at www.eglin.af.mil
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
