Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program in late 2019 awarded BWX Technologies a roughly $1 billion contract to provide reactor components for Ford-class aircraft carriers, the Lynchburg, Va.-based company announced Monday. The $1 billion figure includes options, BWX Technologies said in a press release. The value of the base award, at over $665 […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has promoted Huban Gowadia to principal associate director of global security, where she will lead the California nuclear weapons facility’s nonproliferation and nuclear counterterrorism programs. Livermore’s Global Security Security Principal Directorate also includes the Department of Energy’s programs to counter chemical, biological, and explosive threats. The directorate employs about 800 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is seeking $53 million in fiscal 2021 for the planned W93 sea-based ballistic-missile warhead: two years sooner than the agency previously thought it would need funding for the weapon. A spokesperson for the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency confirmed the figure Thursday morning. In the 2020 budget […]

By Cal Biesecker Defense Daily Huntington Ingalls Industries on Thursday posted lower fourth-quarter earnings despite a strong increase in sales due in part to an impairment charge stemming from the company’s decision to put its oil and gas business up for sale. Net income sank 30% to $149 million, $3.61 earnings per share (EPS), from […]

The Department of Defense plans to ramp up spending on modernization of all three legs of the nuclear triad in fiscal 2021. Here, you’ll find a snapshot of the Pentagon’s effort, featuring year-over-year comparisons between enacted appropriations for 2020 and requests issued Monday for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. For the Columbia-class ballistic […]

A project to ship highly enriched uranium from a facility in Ontario, Canada, to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina wrapped up sometime last year, according to a Wednesday press release. It is unclear when the shipments were completed, but DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said the job […]

The roughly $20 billion 2021 budget the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) requested on Monday — a figure that would come at the expense of the Pentagon’s naval shipbuilding budget and, to a lesser extent, cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex — is “the right number” to reverse a decade of “neglect,” Secretary of […]

The Savannah River Site Integrated Mission Completion Contract procurement unveiled this week by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will not fund any National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) work. The draft statement of work released Thursday does not include any NNSA nuclear weapons or nonproliferation work missions, and a spokesperson confirmed the semiautonomous […]

BWX Technologies said Monday it had received a $3.6 million contract for engineering to decommission and refurbish parts of its Lynchburg, Va., facility to eventually produce high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel for a National Nuclear Security Administration nonproliferation program. The uranium-molybdenum alloy fuel the company will produce will be used in U.S. research reactors that currently […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — After delays attributed to unsuitable electrical components, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) now plans to manufacture the first refurbished B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb and W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead in 2022 and 2021, respectively, a senior agency official said here Tuesday. The B61-12 first production unit was once forecast to finish […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has delayed its choice about whether to use government or commercially developed uranium enrichment technology for defense needs by nearly a year, in part, because the federal option is not yet mature enough to compete, an agency official said here Wednesday. “That’s one of the reasons, […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) made post-Cold War history in its 2021 budget request this week, requesting funds to develop a new sea-based nuclear warhead designated Mk7 W93 — a weapon designed to be rapidly upgradeable and serviced outside of the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. This will be the first […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) management contractor for the Savannah River Site plans by June to finalize the design for a new plant capable of making 50 plutonium nuclear-warhead cores a year, the company’s president said here Wednesday. The conceptual design report for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), to […]

Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette made his first splash on the international stage this week, weaving some tough talk about Iran and North Korea into a speech at a United Nations nuclear security conference in Vienna, Austria. “We call on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] in monitoring and inspecting […]

By Richard Abott Defense Daily Lawmakers are strongly opposing the Navy’s plans to fund eight new ships in fiscal 2021, including only one Virginia-class submarine, a decrease from 12 in the current fiscal 2020. When the fiscal 2021 budget request was first released on Monday, asking for eight ships at $20 billion, House Armed Services seapower and […]

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he plans to nominate Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes to take over as deputy secretary for the Department of Energy. Menezes would succeed Dan Brouillette, who in December was confirmed and sworn in as secretary of energy. The nomination for the No. 2 spot at DOE had not been […]

A lawsuit claiming the Savannah River Site’s security contractor discriminated against a former employee should be dismissed because it was filed past the time allowed under the statute of limitations, a federal magistrate judge recommended. Judge Paige Gossett also noted on Jan. 30 that Marcialena Brown’s $3.5 million complaint covers both Centerra-SRS and two company […]

The Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin a $474 million contract for Trident II (D5) ballistic missile life-extension work. The contract, announced last week, specifically covers the Life Extension 2 Strategic Systems Programs Alteration Advanced Development Program. Work will largely occur in Denver, Colo., and is expected to be finished by September 2026. The Navy obligated […]

The continuing operations of Honeywell flashed 10% per-share earnings growth in 2019, the parent company of multiple Department of Energy site management contractors reported Friday. Excluding the effects of spinning off its transportation systems and commercial building technology units in 2018, Honeywell’s 2019 earnings rose on a per-share basis to $8.16, according to a press […]

Relying on competition, rather than a sole-source award, to choose the latest management contractor for the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory could save about $75 million over the life of the potentially $20-billion, 10-year deal, according to the Government Accountability Office. Some of the potential savings come from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) […]

The Department of Energy and South Carolina are discussing options for removing excess plutonium that was intended to be processed at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, and looking at options to settle the state’s claim that the agency owes hundreds of millions of dollars for missing deadlines to remove that plutonium from the Savannah […]

While Amentum is a new company, it is far from a new face doing business for government nuclear and environmental agencies, a senior executive said Tuesday. The former AECOM Management Services division officially became Amentum on Jan. 31 with the closure of the $2.4 billion sale to affiliates of New York-based investment firms Lindsay Goldberg […]

The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that it has deployed the W76-2 low-yield warhead for submarine-launched ballistic-missiles. “The U.S. Navy has fielded the W76-2 low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warhead.,” according to a statement from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood. The nongovernmental Federation of American Scientists reported last week that the Navy deployed “one or two” W76-2 warheads […]

A federal judge is scheduled on April 22 to sentence a former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist who has pleaded guilty to lying about his relationship with a Chinese talent recruitment program, according to a hearing notice filed Sunday. Turab Lookman, formerly of the New Mexico lab’s Theoretical Division, pleaded guilty in January to one count of […]

Northrop Grumman on Wednesday said its board has elected David Keffer as its new chief financial officer effective Feb. 17. He succeeds Kenneth Bedingfield, who will remain with the company until Feb. 21 to help with the transition. Keffer comes to Northrop Grumman from the private equity firm Blue Delta Capital Partners, which he joined in 2018 […]

The Donald Trump administration plans to pay for a larger civilian nuclear weapons budget in fiscal 2021 partly by requesting funding for only a single Virginia-class attack submarine next year, rather than a pair, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. The outlet is the first to confirm rumors that circulated in Washington in January that President Donald […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Surplus Plutonium Disposition project has reached Critical Decision 1 (CD-1), paving the way for the agency to begin procurement on the long-awaited replacement for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The project hit the milestone on Dec. 19, a spokesperson […]

The Air Force launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile in the early morning hours on Wednesday, testing a new fuse that would set off the nuclear warhead tipping that weapon, as well as its planned successor. The Air Force development test launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California happened one year from the […]