Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Air Force might deploy its Long-Range Standoff Weapon cruise missile earlier than anticipated, while the new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missile should be ready on time, the head of the service’s Global Strike Command said Wednesday. Raytheon will build the Long-Range Standoff missile (LRSO), while Northrop Grumman looks all but certain to win the contract […]

States that host National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) production sites are among the first attempting an economic thaw, moving to reopen some businesses this week, as the number of confirmed active cases of COVID-19 across the agency dipped to 32. That is down from 40 active cases last week, and from 51 the week before, […]

While it has made progress, the Department of Energy still needs to more fully address priority recommendations to improve performance in its nuclear security and cleanup missions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday. In an annual update, the congressional auditor said it has 20 priority recommendations across the Energy Department, including eight recommendations new […]

Air Force Selects Raytheon to Build Next-Gen Nuclear Weapon The Air Force plans to continue building its next nuclear cruise missile, the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO), with Raytheon as the sole-source contractor, according to an April 17 release. The announcement arrives years ahead of an expected down-select. Both Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have been developing […]

By Calvin Bisecker Defense Daily Lockheed Martin this week reported solid first-quarter financial results with strong sales and cash flow, but flat earnings, results it said were not impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the outlook for the rest of the year is “uncertain” and is dependent in part on the “duration and spread” of […]

John Gordon, the retired Air Force general who was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency before becoming the first-ever administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), died Sunday. He was 73. Current NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty — no relation — was among those remembering the agency’s first leader Monday on Twitter. Sources with knowledge of […]

Citing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic response raised by anti-nuclear activists, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has extended by 15 days a public comment period on a draft environmental impact statement for making plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The agency notified the the citizen watchdog group Savannah River Site […]

The former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist who pleaded guilty to lying about connections to a paid Chinese talent-recruiting program wants his sentencing date postponed because of COVID-19-related health concerns, court papers show. Turab Lookman, who pleaded guilty in January to one count of lying to federal authorities, is now nearly “70 years old and […]

It might be possible to produce low-enriched uranium domestically by 2023, including material suitable for nuclear-weapon programs, the Department of Energy said this week in a long-awaited report about restarting end-to-end nuclear fuel production in the United States. Broadly, the plan provides what Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette framed as a “road map” for rebooting […]

BWX Technologies said Monday it has appointed Robb LeMasters as senior vice president and chief strategy officer. He is scheduled to start work on July 13. LeMasters, 42, was most since 2011 the managing director at hedge fund Blue Harbour Group, whose owner announced its closure in February. LeMasters since 2015 has served on BWXT’s […]

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defense wants to buy American for the future of the country’s nuclear security-sharing mission with the United States, urging lawmakers to approve the purchase of 30 Boeing F/A-18 aircraft to carry future B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs. The German publication Der Spiegel on April 29 reported that Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer informed Secretary […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has lost its game of chicken with the Pantex Plant in Texas, where personnel recently blocked a board inspector from attending a meeting of the secretive Nuclear Explosive Safety Study Group, according to a letter posted online. An employee for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) blocked the […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex mistakenly sent improperly packaged radioactive waste to Nevada for six years because no one at the Oak Ridge, Tenn., site wrote strict rules for disposing of weapon-related materials, according to a new Department of Energy report. From 2013 through December 2018, the National Nuclear Security Administration facility sent nine shipments containing […]

There were about as many active COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nationwide complex this week as last week, with most sites still admitting only personnel working on top-priority weapons missions. At deadline Friday, agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., said a total of 65 people had tested positive for infection by novel coronavirus […]

Federal agencies will gradually return to normal operations in parallel with the White House’s three-phase plan to reactivate the national economy as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, the Trump administration said Monday. The new guidance does not provide any set schedule for the process, but rather says managers must make decisions on reducing telework and staffing […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration this week cleared its prime contractors to bill the government for paid time off for workers who cannot do their jobs because of COVID-19, and told the primes to start figuring out how to let subcontractors do the same. The relief is based on Section 3610 of the CARES Act, […]

The Energy Department has applied for renewal of the state permit to operate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The New Mexico Environment Department issued the current Hazardous Waste Facility Permit to DOE and WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership in late November 2010. The state agency has said it has no timetable for […]

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) sites logged more positive cases of COVID-19 this week, boosting the total number of confirmed infections in the civilian nuclear security enterprise beyond the half-century mark. The semiautonomous Department of Energy branch would not say how many new cases of the viral disease its plants, sites, and headquarters had racked […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped the Department of Energy’s plans to dispose of surplus plutonium, nor arguments in a long-running $200 million lawsuit on the matter with the state of South Carolina. The Department of Energy and South Carolina are actually close to settling the matter. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal […]

Both chambers of Congress will remain on recess later than scheduled, returning no earlier than May 4, lawmakers said this week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced the upper chamber would add two weeks to its current recess in a Tuesday note to fellow senators, then in a press release. His announcement followed a […]

The members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday unanimously approved a license for the Department of Energy to export nearly 5 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium to Europe for production of medical isotopes. The four commissioners offered no comments on the matter before or after a roll-call vote on the memorandum and order. The document […]

The Air Force expects to award a contract for its next-generation intercontinental ballistic missiles on schedule, if not earlier, Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper said Thursday Despite the service and contractors enacting new teleworking policies and other social distancing efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) believes it can safely continue building the Uranium Processing Facility, and operate it starting this decade, after taking a court-ordered look at federal earthquake data from 2014. In a lawsuit filed by environmental groups, the U.S. District Court for Eastern Tennessee last year ordered the semiautonomous Department of Energy […]

BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services this week reported multiple cases of COVID-19 among its workforce. The Erwin, Tenn., defense-uranium contractor did not say how many employees were infected, or how many potentially exposed employees were in quarantine following contact with the sick workers. “Our coronavirus response protocols call for enhanced cleaning across the site, […]

The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories has started offering limited COVID-19 tests for its employees, but it was unclear if the weapons engineering lab had tested anyone as of Friday. Sandia is also “entering into a contract” to provide tests for the general public, but “there’s some federal paperwork that has to be resolved” […]

The Department of Energy published guidance Wednesday for contractors that need to bill the government for paid time off given to employees unable to report for work due to COVID-19. The new guidance attempts to steer contracting officers through the process of modifying existing deals so that vendors can claim reimbursement under the $2.2 trillion CARES […]

With the United States probing the possibility of thawing the social freeze from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories plan to start slowly ramping up on-site work this month. Los Alamos has been in a mission-critical operations posture since March, limiting on-site work to what Director Thomas […]