You can see the splitter plate in the first picture, not centered, but closer to the cockpit, basically where it goes from a semi-circle to an elongated intake.
Some info on the intake
The representative provided more information than ever before on a number of "hiccups" the next generation stealth bomber project is facing.
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Designed using commercial off the shelf Kubernetes software, a lot of testing done with a digital twin. Hence the title “The Digital Bomber”.
NGAD is probably meant for the penetration role, so it’s stealth will still be optimized for x-band radars, but this thing has an elongated design to be more optimized to the longer range anti-stealth long wave length radars. So it will operate outside of the range of where enemy fighters are likely to attack it. To detect it is probably going to involve a lot (like space x level, hundreds or thousands) of low orbit radar and imaging satellites to continuously monitor the sky to get reliable continua targeting data, cued by OTH radars.
Having personally seen and touched the YF-23 from the front (intakes especially), sides, underneath, and the exhausts, I’m going to guess the elongated intake is to create two streams of air, one for the engines (2 or 4 I’m not sure how many), as well as another stream to flow around the engine (1. Totally bypass the engine, and 2. for a variable cycle engine flow) to cool the exhaust via air channels as well as possibly to use some air flow to use for Maneuverability. The YF-23 has small holes all around the exhaust as well as ceramic tiles (which had holes for cool air to flow through) to have the exhaust pass over to cool the exhaust. An evolved version of this design is probably going to be employed on this platform.
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The cool exhaust through the trailing edge similar to the following:
If it ever gets to the point it needs to protect itself against aerial threats it could probably carry the Aim-260.
The more durable ceramic stealth that is more rugged is going to be eventually revealed/figured out by the global aerospace community is gong to be interesting to watch. Ceramic and Carbon fiber with a mesh underneath is probably what some are speculating.
Internally it’s probably going to be closer to the EA-18G, but side by side like the F-111. Ejection might be also like the navy’s F-111; the whole cockpit will be a pod. The belly probably is large enough for 3 of the Next-Generation Jammer pods of the EA-18G to be built into the bomb bay.
I suspect B-21 was in part inspired by the X-44A, head on it shares a similar profile, above and below the wing
We finally get to see one of the key missing links that bridged the gap between Lockheed's RQ-3 Darkstar and RQ-170 Sentinel flying-wing drones.
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This inspired the Lockheed P175 Polecat design
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The aircraft is a missing link in a lineage of shadowy unmanned flying-wing drones built by the legendary Skunk Works.
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We can probably extrapolate the rear of the B-21 from this picture:
Northrop Grumman seems to have gone "back to the future" with their next generation stealth bomber design, and that's actually really exciting.
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You have to give it to Northrop, they know how to put on a show with a basic “face reveal”. Btw, the color of grey will probably be used by a lot of drone manufacturers to try to say their drones have similar levels of low detectability.
