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Athens · Friday, 16 October 2026

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The B-21 Raider stealth bomber seen head-on just after takeoff, with mountains in the background

Air Force

B-21 Raider: Annual production to rise 25% with new assembly line at Palmdale

The US Air Force and Northrop Grumman have begun expanding the Palmdale plant to raise annual B-21 Raider production capacity by 25%. The USAF is putting up $4.5 billion to speed deliveries of the planned 100-aircraft fleet.

Ioannis IoannisNewsroom
2 min readUpdated

The second B-21 Raider test aircraft takes off from Palmdale, California, on September 11, 2025, to join the flight test campaign at Edwards Air Force Base. Photo: U.S. Air Force (courtesy photo, Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs), via Wikimedia Commons (public domain, US government work). Cropped to 16:9 and converted to WebP.

The US Air Force and Northrop Grumman have begun the factory expansion that will raise annual production capacity for the B-21 Raider strategic bomber by 25%, according to the Air Force’s announcement, as reported by Military Times. The aim is to speed up deliveries of the planned fleet of 100 aircraft.

Ground was broken on September 29 for the new final assembly line at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. The expansion exceeds one million square feet of facilities. The USAF is allocating $4.5 billion from the fiscal year 2025 reconciliation legislation to accelerate production.

What the programme officials say

“The B-21 Raider is foundational to the Air Force’s future long-range strike capability,” said Gen. Dale White, Director of Critical Major Weapon Systems. Col. Nicholas Jordan, B-21 Systems program director at the Rapid Capabilities Office, said: “This investment in Palmdale will provide the infrastructure, workforce and manufacturing capacity needed to deliver the Raider to the Air Force at an increased rate.”

The B-21 is still in flight testing, which has included aerial refuelling, with a second test aircraft flying since September 2025. The first aircraft are expected at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota in 2027. It is a low-observable bomber designed for highly contested environments, able to carry conventional and nuclear weapons, with an open architecture for future upgrades.

B-21 Raider Northrop Grumman United States

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