B-21 vs B-2: How the New Stealth Bomber Compares With the Spirit

The B-21 is a smaller, newer flying wing built for lower running costs and fast upgrades; the B-2 is a larger 1980s design that is expensive to keep stealthy.

The B-2 first flew on July 17, 1989, and became operational in April 1997. Only 21 were built, because the order was cut after the Cold War. The B-21 rolled out at Palmdale, California, on December 2, 2022, and first flew on November 10, 2023. Northrop Grumman and the Air Force describe it as built on an open systems architecture, so new sensors, weapons and software can be added without the long upgrade cycles that slowed the B-2. They also say its stealth coatings were designed to need less upkeep, a direct lesson from the B-2, whose stealth skin takes extensive care between flights.

Both carry two crew members. The B-2 has a pilot and a mission commander; the Air Force announced on July 9, 2026, that the B-21 will fly with two pilots.

The B-21 is smaller than the B-2, but the Air Force has not published its dimensions.

The B-2 has a wingspan of 172 feet (52.4 m), a length of 69 feet (21 m) and a height of 17 feet (5.2 m), with a maximum takeoff weight of 336,500 pounds (152,600 kg). The B-21’s size, weight, engines and performance are classified. Officials have only said it is smaller than the B-2, and photographs released by the Air Force show a simpler, less jagged trailing edge than the B-2’s sawtooth. Size estimates for the B-21 published elsewhere are guesses from those photos, not official figures.

Neither bomber is fast. The B-2 flies at high subsonic speed with a ceiling of 50,000 feet (15,200 m), powered by four General Electric F118 engines; the B-21’s speed and engines have not been disclosed.

On published figures the B-2 is the known quantity: more than 40,000 pounds (18,100 kg) of weapons and a range of about 6,000 nautical miles (11,100 km) without refueling. The B-21’s payload and range are secret.

The B-2 extends its range to about 10,000 nautical miles (18,500 km) with one aerial refueling, which is how it reaches the Middle East from Missouri and back without landing. It is the only aircraft that carries the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the bomb built to destroy deeply buried targets. It carries two at a time. That is a different weapon from the MOAB blast bomb, which is pushed out of a transport aircraft, as we described in our piece on the MOAB and Iran.

The Air Force says the B-21 will carry both nuclear and conventional weapons. A smaller airframe usually means a smaller bomb bay, so the B-21 is unlikely to match the B-2’s load per sortie, but no official payload figure has been released.

The B-21’s target price is about $692 million per aircraft in 2022 dollars; the B-2 cost about $2.1 billion each when development is spread over the 21 aircraft built.

The Air Force set the B-21’s average procurement unit cost at $550 million in 2010 dollars, which it restated as $692 million in 2022 dollars in December 2022. Outside estimates in 2026 dollars run higher, at roughly $700 million to $750 million, because of inflation. The program is fixed-price for the early production lots, and Northrop Grumman has absorbed the overruns: it took a $1.56 billion charge on the B-21 at the end of 2023 and a further $477 million in the first quarter of 2025.

The B-2 program cost $44.75 billion in total, according to the Government Accountability Office in August 1997. That works out to about $2.1 billion per aircraft in then-year dollars, including research and development, which is why the B-2 is still often called the most expensive aircraft ever built.

The Air Force has 19 B-2s and plans to buy at least 100 B-21s; two B-21 test aircraft were flying as of October 2026.

Of the 21 B-2s built, one crashed on Guam in 2008, and another, damaged by a landing fire at Whiteman Air Force Base on December 10, 2022, was retired in 2024 instead of repaired. All operational B-2s fly with the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman, Missouri. Only part of the fleet is available on any given day because of maintenance.

The second B-21 test aircraft first flew on September 11, 2025, joining the first at Edwards Air Force Base, California. In 2025, Congress added $4.5 billion to speed up production, and on February 24, 2026, the Air Force and Northrop Grumman agreed to raise annual output by 25 percent. Ground was broken on a new final assembly line at Palmdale on September 29, 2026. The B-21 will be based at Ellsworth first, then at Whiteman and at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. For the wider picture of the fleet’s future, see how many fighters the Air Force plans to have by 2035.

The B-2 has fought in every major U.S. air campaign since 1999; the B-21 has not yet entered service.

B-2s struck targets in Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011. On October 16, 2024, they hit underground weapons stores of the Houthis in Yemen. On June 21 and 22, 2025, in Operation Midnight Hammer, seven B-2s dropped 14 GBU-57 bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites, the first combat use of that weapon, as Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters. In the war that began on February 28, 2026, U.S. Central Command said B-2s used 2,000-pound bombs against hardened ballistic missile sites in Iran.

Yes. The B-21 will replace both the B-2 and the B-1B Lancer, leaving the Air Force with two bomber types: the B-21 and the upgraded B-52.

The Air Force’s 2018 bomber plan said the B-2 would retire no later than 2032, and officials have tied the exact date to how fast B-21s arrive. The B-52 stays in service into the 2050s with new engines and radar; we compared its role in our B-52 and LRASM explainer. Until enough B-21s are ready, the B-2 remains the only U.S. aircraft that can carry the heaviest bunker-busting bomb.