Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene kicked off construction of a $78 million Mission Planning Facility, the base’s first project dedicated exclusively to the B-21 Raider stealth bomber with a ground breaking on Thursday.
Col. Robert Sturgill, the base commander, called the 46,000-square-foot building the “nerve center” of the future B-21 campus, where both conventional and nuclear mission planning will take place.
Dyess AFB is set to become the B-21’s third home, following Ellsworth in South Dakota and Whiteman in Missouri.
The facility is an integral part of a comprehensive $1.6 billion modernization initiative that includes more than 24 projects planned for the next decade. This initiative began with the establishment of a $26.7 million fuel complex in December of last year.
