Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Boeing has received a roughly $125 million contract modification to procure some long-lead components for the guided tail kit the company is making for the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, the Department of Defense announced Friday. The contract for tail-kit parts is now in total worth about $130 million, according to a Pentagon procurement notice. The […]

By Richard Abott Defense Daily The secretary of the Navy and chief of naval operations (CNO) told congressional appropriators this week that the service is trying to build more margin in the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program. House appropriators raised concerns about the Columbia program’s cost and schedule margin given a tight timeline, especially following […]

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) this week agreed to stop blocking nominees for high-level Department of Energy jobs after securing an in-person meeting in Nevada with Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, head of DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The senator, her staff, and the DOE top-dogs are set to tour the […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Huntington Ingalls Industries on Thursday posted a big drop in net income in its first quarter due to less favorable pension adjustments, but the company’s top line growth was strong and the outlook for further growth in the coming years was buoyed by strong orders and a record backlog. Net income […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) still has not decided how much funding it will steer to an upcoming contract to keep the JASON group of independent science advisers on life support through most of January, or whether the agency wants to rely on the group over the long term. A spokesperson told Nuclear Security […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory management contractor Triad National Security must quickly change the issues-management practices it inherited from its predecessor to prevent problems with plutonium facilities from spiraling out of control and derailing planned production of nuclear-weapon cores starting in 2026, the Energy Department said in a report Monday. The report comes from DOE’s Office of Nuclear […]

Department of Energy contractor Fluor moved up its quarterly earnings call by several hours Thursday to announce that David Seaton had stepped down as CEO and board member effective May 1. Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Carlos Hernandez is stepping in as “interim” CEO, although there is no leadership search planned, Alan Boeckmann, […]

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon and the National Nuclear Security Administration should reconsider their decision to make nuclear-weapon cores in two states beginning in 2030 after yet another study concluded the plan cannot meet a White House production deadline, a key lawmaker said this week in a hearing here. “The Institute for Defense Analyses found that […]

Editor’s Note 05/14/2019, 9:50 a.m. Eastern: the story was corrected to read that the U.K. shipped highly-enriched uranium to an undisclosed U.S. location. The United Kingdom has finished shipping 700 kilograms of excess highly enriched uranium to the United States from the former fast-reactor research site at Dounreay, Scotland, the U.S. and U.K. said Friday. The […]

The U.S. Navy this week awarded General Dyamics Electric Boat a $269 million contract modification to build 42 more missile tubes for the upcoming Columbia-class and U.K. Dreadnought-class submarines. The award covers the missile tubes as well as missile tube outfitting mat.e.rial under the  U.S.-U.K. Common Missile Compartment program. Both countries will use the same missile […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation office needs to end programs that have served their purpose, the head of that office told a panel of scientists here this week. “We know how to start a project, but we don’t know how to kill it,” Brent Park, NNSA deputy administrator for defense […]

A panel of appeals judges will hear oral argument from Nevada by early October about why the Department of Energy should remove a half metric ton of weapon-usable plutonium from the Nevada National Security Site’s Device Assembly Facility. That is according to a Monday order in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told the […]

The winner of the anticipated 10-year, $1 billion paramilitary security contract at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina must pay for much of its own ammunition and all the dog food. That is among the tidbits in in a third round of questions and answers posted Wednesday on the DOE procurement website. […]

CB&I AREVA MOX Services and a former subcontractor say they should not have to pay the $19.2 million the United States is seeking in a fraud lawsuit. In separate documents filed over the last week in federal court, the companies said they had no knowledge of alleged schemes to defraud the government during construction of […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily As expected, Boeing on Wednesday reported lower sales and earning stemming from a halt in deliveries and flights of its 737 MAX passenger aircraft but the pain from that issue was softened by gains in the defense and services segments. “I want to be very clear, when it comes to resource […]

The independent JASON panel of scientists appears set to receive a reprieve from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration after the Pentagon last month said it would not renew MITRE Corp.’s expiring contract. “The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) anticipates the award of a firm-fixedprice/cost Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) hybrid contract to support the JASON program […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Lockheed Martin blew open the door in its first quarter financials with a strong showing across all of its operating segments and the company increased its guidance for earnings, sales and cash this year. Net income jumped a whopping 42 percent to $1.7 billion, $5.99 earnings per share (EPS), from […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily The acquisition last year of Orbital ATK, combined with strong results in the company’s Aerospace Systems, led to a solid opening quarter for Northrop Grumman, with sales and earnings higher and the outlook for earnings higher this year. Net income increased 3 percent to $863 million, $5.06 earnings per share […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily General Dynamics on Wednesday posted higher first quarter sales due to gains in each of its business segments but net income fell on higher interest expenses and slightly higher taxes, which combined to more than offset a small rise in segment income. Net income dropped 7 percent to $745 million, […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Raytheon on Thursday reported strong first quarter results with the company’s earnings leading the way with a double-digit gain on operational performance, some pension tailwinds and other positives. Despite beating its own and analysts’ expectations on earnings, Raytheon left its outlook for 2019 unchanged. Company officials on their investor call said […]

The State Department has kept the moribund U.S.-Russian Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA) in a congressionally mandated annual report of arms-control compliance concerns. The agency expended some 80 words of the roughly 5,000-word Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments report to warn that Moscow’s 2016 supension of adherence to […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy locked Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff out of meetings at at least one defense nuclear site, a member of the independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog said here Tuesday. At a public meeting, board member Joyce Connery said DNFSB staff at a site she did not identify were denied […]

A key figure in federal lawsuits involving weapon-usable plutonium moved last year to the Nevada National Security Sitehas retired from the Department of Energy, the agency confirmed this week. Henry Allen Gunter left DOE after a long federal career, a spokesperson for DOE’s Environmental Management Office at Savannah River confirmed in an email Tuesday. The […]

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon danced around questions this week about whether the National Nuclear Security Administration can support the planned deployment of next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles if Congress allows the civilian agency to build only a single plutonium pit-production plant. But with lawmakers headed back to Washington next week to prepare bills that will […]

South Carolina says the U.S. Department of Energy owes another $100 million for failing to meet its commitment for disposal of plutonium from the Savannah River Site, and will owe more in 2020 even if the agency meets its federal court-mandated deadline to remove 1 metric ton of plutonium from the state by the end […]

Watchers of the Department of Energy’s defense nuclear waste and weapons budgets will endure another week of added uncertainty about those programs after Congress blew town for an extended spring break without making progress on a deal to avert automatic spending cuts that will kick in on Oct. 1. The House did make an opening […]

The prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) sought and received a federal judge’s help Tuesday in ensuring that the rapidly downsizing company retains control of proprietary information at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. MOX Services has been shedding jobs since the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in October […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plan to produce the fissile nuclear-weapon cores known as plutonium pits in two states is “potentially achievable,” according to a new study the agency publicized, but did not release, this week. Congress last year ordered the secretary of defense, in consultation with NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, to commission a […]