The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration dinged Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) for delays on a nuclear-bomb life-extension program in fiscal 2017 in a generally positive performance evaluation report published Thursday.
Overall, CNS earned about $36 million in fees for managing the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency’s Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex in Tennessee and Pantex Plant in Texas in fiscal 2017, taking home roughly 88 percent of the available $41 million and change. Only about $1 million of the total was a fixed fee.
The Bechtel-led team netted about 87 percent of available award fees, which are subject to the government’s judgement, for the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2017, the NNSA said.
Consolidated Nuclear Security “continues to experience schedule delays with respect to high-priority weapons programs, namely the B61-12 Life Extension Program,” the agency wrote in a performance evaluation report dated Nov. 30 and published online this week. That program, which aims to homogenize different versions of that nuclear gravity bomb by fiscal year 2024, was slowed this year by delays with “weapon subprojects,” according to the report.
The NNSA also warned that CNS experienced delays with parts of a program called W88 Alt-370, which aims to refurbish and replace certain non-nuclear components of a warhead used on submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
However, the NNSA said recently both of these programs are still on schedule.
Meanwhile, the agency lauded CNS’ “substantial positive program in addressing long standing facility and infrastructure issues” at Pantex: the workshop near Amarillo where the contractor assembles and disassembles nuclear warheads for repairs, refurbishment, and retirement. Improvements mentioned include plans for a new fire station and fire suppression system at Pantex.
The agency also said CNS made progress on technology maturation for the planned Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12, the NNSA’s uranium enrichment site. The new facility, to be built under a subcontract to Bechtel National, is supposed to get a formal cost and schedule estimate this year. The NNSA has told Congress it will finish the plant by 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion, funding permitting.
Consolidated Nuclear Security has been on the job at Y-12 and Pantex since 2014, under a prime contract worth more than $20 billion over 10 years, including options.
At Pantex, CNS has a pivotal role on all ongoing NNSA weapon modernization programs, which besides the B61-12 program include:
- The future Next B61-12 program, to extend the life of the standardized B61-12 bombs.
- Life-extension programs for the W76 and W88 warheads used by the submarine-launched Trident family of ballistic missiles. The programs are scheduled to be completed in fiscal years 2019 and 2024, respectively.
- The life-extension program to upgrade W80 warheads for use on the next-generation air-launched cruise missile, the Long-Range Standoff weapon. Upgrades are slated to finish by fiscal 2031.
- The interoperable warhead program, which if continued would include life-extension for the W78 warhead used on the Minuteman III ICBM.
The completion dates above are those published in the leaked draft of the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. The official copy of that review is expected to be published in February.
