Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories recently completed the first full-system mechanical environment test on a refurbished B61 nuclear bomb, marking a key milestone in the life extension program for the weapons system, the National Nuclear Security Administration said yesterday. The test is the first in a series of environmental tests designed to certify that the B61-12 can operate normally and in case of an accident. “As an early test, it provides data for analytical model correlation and validation, insight into component environments and evaluation of developmental hardware,” the NNSA said. The test took place at newly modernized Sandia facilities, the NNSA said.
The NNSA also said the test was the first involving the Tail Kit Assembly being developed by the Air Force, and included subassembly and system-level mass properties measurements as well as shock and vibration testing. The B61-12 will replace four B61 variants: the 3, 4, 7, and 10. “As long as the United States continues to have nuclear weapons, we must ensure that they remain safe, secure and effective without the use of underground nuclear explosive testing,” NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs Don Cook said “The first full-system mechanical environmental test of the B61-12 is a significant achievement and gives us confidence in our ability to move forward with our efforts to increase the safety and security of the bomb.”
