Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The National Nuclear Security Administration will postpone by months its decision about which of two technologies will power the next U.S. defense-uranium enrichment facility. “NNSA recently notified Congress that it intends to complete its Analysis of Alternatives for supply of unobligated enriched uranium by mid-to-late FY2020,” an agency spokesperson wrote in a Thursday email, responding […]

MOX Services, prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), played fast and loose with federal contracting rules, the U.S. Department of Energy’s inspector general wrote in a scathing report published days before the winter holidays. The audit, which focused on MOX Services’ administration of project subcontractors, identified some $8.5 million in questionable […]

The U.S. Navy on Dec. 16 awarded General Dynamics Mission Systems a $300 million sole-source contract for fiscal years 2020-2023 for U.S. and U.K. Trident II D-5 support work. This specifically covers Trident II fleet ballistic missiles submarine fire control system, guided missile submarine attack weapon control system, and support equipment rework facility support. Most […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear production complex awakens in earnest from a post-Cold War slumber in the 2020s, and the agency has a year of stable funding to launch a decade in which a major foreign policy decision could change the tack of the ongoing U.S. nuclear modernization program. It is, of course, a […]

The U.S. Department of Energy is considering a stand-alone contract for management of its Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. The DOE Office of Environmental Management on Wednesday issued a request for information/sources sought notice for management and operations of the government lab, which currently operates under the full Savannah River Site (SRS) contract. […]

A 2020 appropriations package passed by Congress this week would fully fund the next generation of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, along with the civilian-operated infrastructure that makes their warheads. Gone from the 2020 budget are nearly all the restrictions House Democrats wanted to put on the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) procurement, and supporting infrastructure and […]

A group of 11 nuclear security and health experts on Wednesday urged the heads of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services to find that the federal government no longer needs to export weapon-grade uranium for foreign production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). Allowing exports to continue would present a continued […]

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published on Friday, Dec. 27, in observance of the Christmas holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 3, 2020.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) would receive a roughly a $31 million budget for fiscal 2020, which it would have to use to employ the equivalent of at least 110 full-time staff, under a 2020 appropriations package Congress approved this week. Explanatory language appended to the bill, which President Donald Trump was set […]

In a pound-the-table brief filed this week, Nevada asked a federal judge to hear oral arguments in an ongoing lawsuit to remove 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium from the state. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration shipped the material to the Nevada National Security Site in 2018 to comply with a court order […]

Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) has received a three-year contract potentially worth more than $2.3 million to support construction by Centrus Energy of a 16-machine uranium enrichment cascade at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio. Under the pact, which will employ the equivalent of 2.5 full-time employees, Pro2Serve, of Oak Ridge, Tenn., […]

Congress wants the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to slide about $5.5 million from the maintenance budget for the W80 cruise-missile warhead into a Pentagon study to select a design for a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile, according to a compromise 2020 spending bill that would fund the agency through September. The Donald Trump administration proposed […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is revising its plan to implement recommendations the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board made this year about the Pantex nuclear-weapon servicing plant in Texas. “The Department of Energy has accepted the need to revise and update our implementation plan,” James McConnell, NNSA associate administrator for safety, infrastructure, and […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration appears set to get all the money it wants for the current budget year, and a little more, including some $710 million to start work on a controversial two-state plutonium pit complex intended to bring a new nuclear-weapon mission to South Carolina. A compromise budget bill that passed through […]

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) took delivery of three new radiation monitoring aircraft recently and put them on display here Wednesday at one of two home bases for the airborne leg of the agency’s counterterrorism office. The three new King Air 350ER airplanes provided by Textron Aviation of […]

The Kansas City, Mo., National Security Campus plans this coming spring to open a small satellite factory about 1 mile east from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) main workshop for non-nuclear components of nuclear-weapon. “Occupancy is expected to begin next spring after tenant improvements such as utilities and furnishings are completed,” a spokesperson […]

The compromise National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2020 would allow almost $2.1 billion for defense environmental cleanup operations the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Defense environmental cleanup is the largest tranche of funding for Hanford and other properties managed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. In total, the office would […]

Northrop Grumman is officially the only company to bid on the potentially $25 billion contract to build and deploy the U.S. Air Force’s Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) intercontinental ballistic missiles. The company confirmed Friday, at the deadline to submit bids, that it put in an offer with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center. Boeing, the […]

A risk of combustion linked to calcium prompted suspension in November of transuranic waste shipments from the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant further south in New Mexico, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). Workers discovered calcium metal in certain transuranic material that can ignite […]

Department of Energy contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security returned some piping to a subcontractor after determining it was unsuitable for installation in the main uranium processing building at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. Subcontractor Hicks & Ingle, of Knoxville, Tenn., fabricated the pipes under a two-year contract awarded in 2018. A spokesperson for Consolidated […]

MCLEAN, Va. — The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to help defray cost overruns on two nuclear-weapon refurbishments by stripping features out of the planned warhead for the Air Force’s next land-based intercontinental ballistic missile, a senior agency official said Thursday. The features to be cut, however, are not mission-essential requirements for the […]

The U.S. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) would move to keep inspectors on the job at Department of Energy defense nuclear sites beyond Dec. 20, if the federal government shuts down when the current stopgap spending measure expires. In the event of a government closure, “the Chairman may designate resident inspectors at designated DOE defense […]

Members of the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board would generally not be allowed to serve in expired terms any longer, if Congress’ compromise 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) becomes law. The measure would make an exception in cases where the departure of a board member would leave the nominally five-member body without its […]

House Democrats failed to slow procurement of next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles via the 2020 National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA), the final version of which almost fully supports the Trump administration’s funding request and approves the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to build warheads for the missile. However, the bill is loaded with legally binding language […]

Despite discussing arms control in private meetings Tuesday in Washington, the top diplomats for the United States and Russia gave no hint in a subsequent press conference that the countries would extend the New START nuclear treaty. Speaking with reporters, Mike Pompeo, President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, stuck to the administration’s position that New START […]

Nevada National Security Site prime Mission Support and Test Services said it has hired Jose Sinibaldi, a subcritical experimentalist formerly of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, as its chief scientist. Sinibaldi now will be in charge of creating a strategic plan for the former Nevada Test Site’s future subcritical plutonium experiments, which the National Nuclear […]

House Democrats opted not to fall on their swords this week to slow the ongoing nuclear arsenal modernization program, when they overwhelmingly supported passage of a National Defense Authorization Act that approves just about all the Department of Energy weapons spending requests for fiscal 2020. That means that through the Sept. 30 end of the […]

Members are Congress are keeping the pressure on the Department of Energy to explain why it gave Centrus Energy Corp. a sole-source contract to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel using a brand new, domestic-built cascade. Senators pressed now-Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette for details during the latter’s confirmation process, which wrapped up successfully last week […]