It will cost about $1 billion through 2025 to build a new X-ray camera to observe subcritical plutonium experiments at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), according to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
Those figures come from a conceptual design for the planned Advanced Sources and Detectors (ASD) project headed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which on Feb. 14 reached a crucial project management milestone known as Critical Decision 1, the agency and Los Alamos said in press releases last week.
Advanced Sources and Detectors is the major construction line item in a series of planned upgrades to the NNSS U1a Complex: the main site for explosive plutonium tests that do not product a nuclear yield, but allow the NNSA to observe how the critical fissile material behaves under stress. With nuclear-explosive tests on indefinite hold, the agency uses subcritical experiments to verify that current nuclear weapons will perform as designed.
“This new diagnostic capability will allow scientists to better understand how plutonium reacts under extreme conditions and further our ability to ensure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without the need for full-scale underground nuclear testing,” Charles Verdon, NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs, said in the release.
Congress appropriated $50 million for ASD “and supporting research activities” in the current fiscal 2019. Lawmakers also ordered the agency to include cost and schedule details for building the system in its fiscal 2020 budget request, which is expected in March.
In its 2019 budget request, the NNSA said the broad suite of U1a upgrades, which includes general construction besides ASD, will be done “in the mid-2020s.”
The NNSA planned to use 2019 ASD funds funding to prepare the project for Critical Decision 2: the point in the agency’s project-management regimen at which a project gets formal cost and schedule estimates that inform future budget requests. Critical Decision 1 was a little late. In its 2019 funding request, the NNSA thought ASD would hit the milestone sometime in the 2018 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
