The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Pantex Plant in Texas said Monday it has assembled the “first production capability unit” of the W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched nuclear warhead, a precursor to the first production unit intended to prove the entire warhead design is ready for mass manufacturing.
The phrase “first production capability unit” officially debuted in February in the NNSA’s budget request for fiscal 2021. The agency’s latest Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, an annual declassified summary of ongoing nuclear-arsenal modernization operations, did not include the term, nor did the NNSA’s 2020 budget request.
A spokesperson for Bechtel National-led plant operator Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) did not reply to multiple requests for comment about when Pantex completed the first production capability unit or what that unit involves.
The W88 is the larger of the Navy’s two submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads, both of which tip Trident II-D5 missiles carried by Ohio-class vessels. The 370 major alteration will replace the weapon’s arming, fusing and firing system, along with the conventional high explosives that set off its nuclear explosive package. The upgrade will keep the weapon in service for decades more.
The W88 Alt-370’s true first production unit — a fully assembled, and potentially deployable, warhead that will be disassembled to verify the design is sound and ready for mass production — was delayed to fiscal 2021 from fiscal 2019 due to the need to replace capacitors intended for use in three major parts of the weapon.
The B61-12 gravity bomb, the upgraded version of the oldest deployed U.S. nuclear weapon, was also delayed because of the unsuitable commercial capacitors, which the NNSA is replacing with custom units that can last decades more in the field. The first B61-12 production unit slipped from 2020 to 2022, the NNSA said.
Capacitors store electrical charges and can be used in detonators and neutron generators, among other things.
Consolidated Nuclear Security said in its press release that assembling the “first production capability unit” of the W88 Alt-370 allows the Amarillo plant’s “staff to exercise processes to ensure readiness for rate production” of the weapon.
The NNSA and the Pentagon estimate the W88 Alt-370 will cost about $4 billion over roughly 10 years, including up to $3 billion in NNSA expenses. The NNSA has roughly 350 W88 warheads, the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists estimates.
Meanwhile, Pantex remains in mission critical operations in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19 through the nation’s primary nuclear weapons service hub. Consolidated Nuclear Security told any employee who could telework to do so, but people involved with hands-on nuclear-weapons work are still reporting for the plant’s usual three shifts.
Pantex, like other NNSA sites, has reported cases of COVID-19, the viral disease caused by the novel coronavirus that broke out in Wuhan, China, in 2019. Typically, each confirmed case of COVID-19 sends many more people into preventive quarantine.