National Nuclear Security Administration officials defended the agency’s decision to accelerate work on the W80-4 warhead, which will be used in the Air Force’s new Long-Range Standoff weapon, in questioning yesterday from Democrats and Republicans on the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. The Administration moved up the planned First Production Unit on the cruise missile warhead from 2025 to 2027 and requested $195 million for work on the warhead refurbishment in Fiscal Year 2016, up from $9.4 million in FY 2015. The funding request is nearly triple what has been requested for previous warhead refurbishment efforts during the same point in development, which NNSA weapons program chief Don Cook said was to address technology readiness earlier in the refurbishment process. “What we learned from the W76-1 and the B61-12 was we had funded the technology maturation too late,” Cook said. Cook also noted that the Government Accountability Office recently recommended the agency accelerate funding for technology maturation efforts.
Because the President’s budget request for defense spending is well over Budget Control Act funding caps, the subcommittee will be forced to make tough choices, Chairman Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said. Budget caps are essentially the same as last year, Simpson said, suggesting that “every increase over last year’s amount will have to be offset by some other activity,” he said. “With the magnitude of the defense needs we are facing, tough decisions must be made.” Cook also said accelerating work on the W80-4 would help level the workload at the NNSA’s labs and production plants and allow the agency to take advantage of common non-nuclear parts that will be used in the B61-12 as well as the new cruise missile warhead. NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said an “issue” with the missile platform was also making it necessary to refurbish the warhead. “We recognize the existing warhead is an older warhead,” Cook said. “There might be some modest risk in having a later date.”
There is more risk in the missile platform, according to Adm. Cecil Haney, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command. Testifying at a Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing yesterday, Haney said the air-launched cruise missile warhead was having some “reliability problems” that necessitated an acceleration of the refurbishment program. “There was very strong interest in trying to accelerate that program if we could,” said Frank Kendall, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. After the hearing, he said an ongoing review is underway to see if work work on the warhead needs to be moved up. “We’re seeing I think it’s fair to say more problems than we had anticipate,” he said.
