The National Nuclear Security Administration has officially picked up the tab to keep the JASON group of independent scientists alive, awarding MITRE Corp. on Thursday an eight-month, $5-million contract to perform three nuclear-security studies, an agency spokesperson said.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “has awarded a short-term, sole-source contract to the MITRE Corp. for program management and logistic support for JASON and its members,” the spokesperson said Friday. “NNSA will sponsor studies on: cyber security, high-altitude nuclear detection and plutonium pit aging.”
The award and its terms were the news this week, as the semi-autonomous DOE branch had previously said it would keep JASON alive at least long enough for the group to complete these three studies. Eight months from Thursday would take the contract into early February: about as long as NNSA pledged to carry JASON after the Pentagon dropped the group in April.
The Pentagon decided to stop funding JASON after the group had provided about 60 years of independent scientific advice on a multitude of topics to the Defense Department and other agencies. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), chair of the House Armed Services strategic force subcommittee, broke the news in an April 9 hearing in which NNSA Lisa Gordon-Hagerty testified.
NNSA, which had by then had already engaged, or was planning to engage, JASON for the three studies just funded, decided subsequently to keep the group on life support at least through January.
The NNSA spokesperson on Friday would not say whether the agency would keep footing the bill for JASON after that. The NNSA in May said it would consider doing so after it conducted “market research” about how to obtain JASON services in the future — if, indeed, the agency wants any.
The Pentagon’s JASON contract was much broader in scope than the pact NNSA just awarded. The Defense Department gave the company an indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery contract that other federal agencies could use to issue the group tailored task orders.
The NNSA pact applies only to NNSA.
JASON is only a fraction of MITRE Corp.’s business. The nonprofit makes virtually all of its money managing Federally Funded Research and Development Centers: contractor-operated government laboratories and think tanks dedicated to long-term research on national security, cybersecurity, aviation, and other topics.
