Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The competitive landscape for the potentially 10-year, $28-billion contract to manage the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two big nuclear weapons production sites is starting to come into focus, now that the agency has hosted hopefuls for site visits and one-on-one meetings. Following tours of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the […]

Not that it ever stopped, but the National Nuclear Security Administration this week officially reaffirmed its decision to continue building the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The long-expected news, delivered Wednesday in an amended record of decision filed in the Federal Register, was presaged in June, when […]

OSI Systems acquired the radiation detection company Nucsafe in a deal that expands its products and customer footprint in the nuclear security market. Terms of the transaction, which was conducted by OSI’s subsidiary American Science & Engineering, were not disclosed late Tuesday. Nucsafe’s management and development team will remain with the company. OSI highlighted Nucsafe’s […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration picked up nearly 40 new confirmed COVID-19 cases this week, but recoveries well outstripped new infections, leaving the nuclear-weapon steward with six fewer active cases, at deadline Friday. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency was tracking 87 active cases among its federal and contractor workforce Friday, making for a total […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is consulting with Norway on a study about whether the nordic nation can downblend its own stock of highly enriched uranium and thorium, U.S. and Norwegian officials announced this week. In 2020, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency expects to spend only about $50,000 on the effort, which […]

A two-university team is offering its services to prospective bidders on a potentially 10-year contract to manage the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two major nuclear-weapons manufacturing sites, but it had not hooked on with any industry partners this week. “The University of Tennessee System and the Texas A&M University System have announced a strategic alliance […]

Expect the Department of Energy to issue the long-anticipated paramilitary security contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina within the next few months, a federal official said Monday. Michael Budney, the head of the department’s Savannah River Site’s (SRS) operations office, made the assessment during Monday’s online meeting of the Savannah River Site’s […]

Gene Sievers is taking over as manager of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., backfilling a position left vacant after his predecessor was promoted as part of the leadership shuffle that ensued when Morgan Smith retired as head of the outgoing nuclear-weapons production-site prime. Sievers, most recently vice president of the Bechtel […]

A nuclear brain-drain in the military has shown signs of reversing course in the decade-plus since the mistaken delivery of nuclear-armed cruise missiles to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, the head of the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research said Monday. “My sense of it is that that bottomed out,” Brad […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration finished an environmental review that will could the civilian nuclear-weapons agency to formalize a decision to make plutonium pits in South Carolina within about a month. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency approved the final site-specific environmental impact statement this week and published it Friday. A formal record of decision […]

At deadline Friday, Congress appeared on track to pass a just-in-time stopgap budget that will force the National Nuclear Security Administration to operate for nearly three months with a budget that’s about $3 billion a year less than what the agency says it needs to keep nuclear maintenance and modernization programs on time. The Senate […]

Active cases of COVID-19 among the National Nuclear Security Administration contractors and civil servants rose by 15 week to week, a spokesperson with the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency said Friday.  That left the agency with a total of 93 active cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at deadline for Nuclear Security & […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Friday finalized an environmental review that could allow the civilian nuclear-weapons agency to formalize within a month a decision to make plutonium pits in South Carolina. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released a draft environmental impact statement about the proposed Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) in April. […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved retired Army Gen. Lucas Polakowski to be assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, and staff director of the joint civil-military group that coordinates nuclear weapons acquisition. Polakowski was one of six civilian nominations the Committee advanced in a meeting Tuesday, held just over a […]

A House-passed 2021 spending bill, which would provide the $816 million the National Nuclear Security Administration requested for its B61-12 life-extension program, would “impair” the government’s ability to deliver that refurbished nuclear bomb on time, a senior Pentagon official told Congress Thursday. “It might not be intuitively obvious how that would affect certain programs because […]

The paperwork went through this week to officially extend Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies for another year as the management and operations contractor of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear-weapons components hub. A notice about the modification that picked up the Honeywell subsidiary’s option appeared Monday on the federal government’s online hub for acquisition and procurement documents, […]

Congress’ fight over the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2021 budget poses “challenges” for rolling out new nuclear delivery systems and carrier vehicles that already are poised to debut “just barely in time,” the vice chair of the joint chiefs of staff said Thursday morning. “If you’ve been in the acquisition business in this building very […]

The Air Force’s program to acquire a new fleet of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, which fast became a one-horse race that Northrop Grumman won, is a model for the sort of procurement ethos that will help the U.S. acquire new weapons as fast as China, the commander of U.S. nuclear forces said Monday. “China can […]

Turab Lookman, a former Los Alamos physicist, dodged a six-month prison sentence last week, when a federal judge sentenced him to five years probation and a fine for lying to federal investigators about his connection to China’s Thousand Talents program. With good behavior, Lookman’s probation might end sooner, according to the sentencing minute sheet filed in the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration finished building a non-nuclear prototype of the B61-12, a refurbished version of the oldest deployed U.S. nuclear weapon that will homogenize four existing versions of the nuclear gravity bomb. The semiautonomous DOE nuclear weapons agency announced the milestone late last week in a press release. Personnel assembled the B61-12 first production […]

Fresh from his primary victory over Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.), Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) led a big chunk of the Senate’s Democratic caucus, including the minority leader, in calling on conferees to maintain a prohibition against nuclear-explosive testing in the final version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. “A U.S. nuclear weapons testing restart […]

A congressional appropriator predicted this week there will be a short-term continuing resolution passed to keep the Energy Department and other federal agencies running from Oct. 1 into December. “We will not have a budget shutdown,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann said during the virtual National Cleanup Workshop hosted by the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) in cooperation […]

“Individuals from the Department of Energy” collaborated with House Democrats to destroy the National Nuclear Security Administration’s autonomy within the DOE, and cut the Pentagon out of civilian nuclear-weapons budget planning entirely, Sen. James Inhofe said Thursday. “I suppose we should have expected this sort of political maneuvering to continue after what happened earlier this […]

COVID-19 recoveries outpaced new confirmed cases this week at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which recorded 13 new confirmed infections among personnel nationally, but saw active cases drop by 26, week to week. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency was tracking 78 active cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus on […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said it finished construction of a new 15 kilovolt electrical distribution system that will provide redundant power supply for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. In a press release Tuesday, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said the Expand Electrical Distribution System hit its CD-4 milestone — DOE project […]

The administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration is the Department of Energy’s delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 64th annual General Conference in Vienna next week, the DOE nuke agency said Thursday. The annual meeting of the United Nations body, which promotes peaceful uses of nuclear energy and nuclear-weapons nonproliferation, is scheduled to […]

The story “Bidders for New Y-12, Pantex Contract Can Tour Sites This Month” (Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 25, No. 35) should have said the city of Oak Ridge was the first of several stakeholders to write a letter to the National Nuclear Security Administration advocating for splitting management of Y-12 into a standalone […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved retired Army Gen. Lucas Polakowski to be assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, and staff director of the joint civil-military group that coordinates nuclear weapons acquisition. Polakowski was one of six civilian nominations the Committee advanced in a meeting Tuesday, held just over a […]