Military and Aerospace Electronics Online August 02, 2009
Massive Ordnance Penetrator fit to B-2 would speed to next year if Congress agrees
WASHINGTON, 2 Aug. 2009. The Pentagon is asking Congress for money to speed deployment of the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker busting super bomb on the B-2 stealth bomber for potential use in heavily defended areas of the world, such as Iran and North Korea.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) asked Congress for permission to move $68 million in the 2010 DOD budget to the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker buster program to enable the first four super bombs can be carried by the B-2 stealth bomber by next year, according to published reports.
The conventional Massive Ordnance Penetrator, commonly known as MOP, is 20 feet long, weighs 30,000 pounds, and carries 6,000-pounds of high explosives. It is designed to go deeper than any existing nuclear bunker-busting weapon.
The B-2 is a radar-evading bomber designed to penetrate sophisticated air defenses and drop explosives on valuable, heavily defended targets.
An explosion from the gigantic air-dropped Massive Ordnance Penetrator is expected to penetrate as deeply as 200 feet through reinforced concrete 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.
American defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Boeing Co. are developing this conventional bunker buster under contract to Air Force Research Laboratory's Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and Defense Threat Reduction Agency, according to GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va.
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, built by Boeing, is so large that the B-2 bomber could carry only one of the weapons. The super bomb has a short wing span and is satellite guided.
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