Boeing is set to receive a contract worth up to $123 million to replace the 14 massive bunker-buster bombs expended during June’s US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday,citing a Pentagon budget document and three people familiar with the matter.
The weapon, known as the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), weighs 30,000 pounds (13,600 kg), measures six meters (20 feet) in length, and is considered the world’s largest precision-guided conventional bomb. It can penetrate up to 200 feet underground before detonating, according to the US Air Force.
The Pentagon disclosed in an August budget document that it had reallocated $123 million from operations and maintenance accounts to Air Force munitions procurement, saying the funds were needed to replace munitions used in “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the code name for the strikes.
The document described the operation as being conducted “in support of Israel.”
During the June raid, US B-2 bombers deployed 12 of the MOPs against the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, with President Donald Trump telling a gathering of military leaders outside Washington that the weapons achieved “total obliteration,” and that “every single one of them hit its target.”
On June 22, Trump ordered airstrikes on nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow two days before brokering a ceasefire to a 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel.
The bombs are manufactured with components from several facilities. The bomb bodies are forged at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma, where the Army has been expanding production capacity to triple monthly output.
Personnel there fill casings with explosives and assemble the warhead and fuse. Boeing supplies the tail kit, which provides navigation and guidance systems, and has integrated the bomb for use with the B-2 stealth bomber.
The Air Force has disclosed few details about the program but acknowledged in 2015 that it had contracted 20 units with Boeing.
The new replacement contract is separate from an agreement the service awarded in late August to Applied Research Associates Inc. and Boeing to design and prototype the next generation of the weapon.
