The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) completed the last production unit of the W88 Alteration 370, a program to modernize the W88 nuclear warhead over several years, NNSA announced Tuesday.
The W88 nuclear warhead entered the stockpile in late 1988 and is deployed in the U.S. Navy’s Ohio-class Trident II D5 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile system. The W88 Alt 370 includes numerous updates to address aging concerns and enhance nuclear security, NNSA said in the release.
The Navy coordinated with personnel from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, the Pantex Plant, the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the Kansas City National Security Campus on design, development, component production and qualification, the release said.
Now that the last unit is complete, Pantex will continue production of the W88 Alt 370 warheads and secondary components for future surveillance. With the transition to sustainment for the W88 Alt 370, staff from that program are transitioning to focusing on accelerating the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) program. The SLCM-N program and W93 warheads, two of the seven ongoing warhead modernization programs within NNSA, currently are expected to achieve first production unit milestones in the early to mid-2030s.
“Completing the W88 Alt 370 is the latest instance of NNSA delivering modernized nuclear weapons to the Department of War at the pace and scale needed to fulfill our deterrence requirements,” NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams said in the release. “Achieving two LPUs for the B61-12 and W88 and the FPU for the B61-13 all within a single year demonstrates our ability to execute NNSA’s fundamental production mission.”