Northrop Grumman expects to win a second contract to continue producing the Pentagon’s new B-21 Raider by the end of the year, executives announced today.

“With the B-21, we’re about to hit the milestones associated with an award” for the Low-Rate Initial Production Contract 2, or LRIP 2, “and so we expect that to happen in the fourth quarter,” CEO Kathy Warden told investors during the company’s third quarter earnings call on Thursday.

Warden did not say how many planes the contract would cover. But it would be the second of five annual LRIPs expected to total 21 aircraft – and cost the company a total of 1.2 billion dollarsshe said, blaming the losses on inflation, supply chain issues and the company’s commitment to a fixed-price contract before they had a mature design. The Air Force expects to pay roughly $780 million per LRIP aircraft—officially, 550 million dollars per plane under 2010 dollars – based on its overall plan to buy at least 100 Raiders.

Northrop executives say the program will eventually become profitable. The company has negotiated a higher cost ceiling for the 19 aircraft that will follow the first 21.

The service not planning to buy more than 100 Raiders – although some think tanks argue that it should — because the future may bring new and improved technology, officials say. The service takes another look in all its next-generation plans, as previous concepts of air superiority and adversary capabilities have changed.

Said Warden, “They’re doing a force structure design and the (Air Force) secretary has been open about looking at the different options they have to increase their force size, and has talked specifically about NGAD, and we know that the B-21 is in mix, too. It would be too early for me to suggest where that force structure review will end up, but I think in the coming months we may get a better indication from the Air Force of how they think about B-21 quantities in the long term .”

In the meantime, flight testing and production are going well, Warden said.

“The B-21 program has also made solid progress in achieving ground and flight test milestones on the development contract, and continues to execute the aircraft production contract in line with our estimates,” she said.

Last month, Northrop said it has three aircraft in testtwo for ground testing and one for flight testing, and has been able to conduct flight tests twice a week.