Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., has appointed Toby Smith as its new senior vice president and general counsel, replacing Ronald (Chip) Whitford, the company said last week. BWXT expects that Whitford will stay on in an advisory role through early 2026, the company said in a Nov. 6 press release. BWXT said Smith has logged more […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – One or two advanced reactor pilot projects should reach criticality by next July Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said here Monday at the American Nuclear Society conference. In June, the Department of Energy, sparked by President Donald Trump’s May 23 executive orders, created an advanced nuclear reactor pilot program. Under the program, […]

Rather than a test silo, the Air Force will use a launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., for the first flight test of an unarmed LGM-35A Sentinel missile by Northrop Grumman. “The first flight test was moved to a pad launch to allow for a more incremental approach to flight testing,” the Air […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Republican chairs of Senate and House Appropriations subcommittees for Energy and Water expect to hold a conference meeting in late January to blend their two versions of a fiscal 2026 spending plan, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), said  Monday. Fleischmann, the chair of the House Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee, said he and […]

The Australian government early this month announced a strategic contract setting up an industry partnership that will potentially see Australian battery technology used in the SSN-AUKUS submarine design.  The Australian-based PMB Defense is partnering with the United Kingdom’s BAE Systems in contracts worth over $34 million in U.S. dollars to enable potential integration of its […]

President Donald Trump’s White House statements during Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent visit confirmed Trump supports advancing AUKUS, regardless of an ongoing Department of Defense review, a DoD nominee said last week.  Austin Dahmer, nominee to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities, made these comments during his testimony to the […]

Ernest Moniz, former energy secretary and head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said in an interview with Christiane Amanpour returning to explosive nuclear testing would have a “quite terrible” impact “on multiple dimensions.” When asked about President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would return to nuclear testing “on an equal basis” with other countries, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Sandia National Laboratories announced Thursday it conducted a flight test of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb on an F-35 aircraft in August. The flight tests took place at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, with aircraft generation from Hill Air Force Base in Utah, a press release from Sandia said. […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Contractors in the nuclear weapons complex have come out of the shutdown relatively unscathed, although it could take months to catch up on work around the Department of Energy sites, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) told the Exchange Monitor this week.  Fleischmann, chair of the House Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee, shared his […]

The House voted 222-209 Wednesday to approve a stopgap spending bill that will fund the government until Jan. 30 with a loose promise from the GOP that Congress will negotiate on healthcare once the government reopens. The continuing resolution (CR), alongside a three-bill spending package, headed to President Donald Trump’s desk shortly after the House […]

Brendan Rogers, nominated to be assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations and environment, promoted small modular reactors (SMRs) as a viable option to power military installations at a Senate nomination hearing last week. Rogers said SMRs had “great potential” and if confirmed, would look for ways to implement the new nuclear technology to […]

Earnings rose at Centrus Energy, based in Bethesda, Md., in the third quarter, which the uranium broker and enrichment developer attributed to an increase in the volume of uranium sold. Net earnings for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 were $3.9 million, or $0.19 a diluted share, up from a net loss of $5 million […]

Earnings fell at Fluor, Irving, Texas, in the third quarter, which the international engineering and construction company chalked up to a court ruling and the declining share price for Fluor-backed NuScale Power. The biggest blow to earnings was an adverse court decision of $653 million in a completed infrastructure project in Australia, according to Fluor’s […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) last Thursday Oct. 30 posted strong third quarter results on ample top and bottom-line performance at its shipbuilding operations combined with a solid contribution from the Mission Technologies segment. Net income jumped 44% to $145 million, $3.68 earnings per share (EPS), from $101 million ($2.56 EPS), handily topping consensus estimates by […]

President Donald Trump last week announced South Korea will build a nuclear-powered submarine in Philadelphia, with the U.S. sharing sensitive technology with South Korea akin to the AUKUS agreement. “South Korea will be building its Nuclear Powered Submarine in the Philadelphia Shipyards, right here in the good ol’ U.S.A. Shipbuilding in our Country will soon […]

Earnings rose significantly at BWX Technologies (BWXT), Lynchburg, Va., in the third quarter, which the company attributed to its “differentiating nuclear credentials” and some multi-year, special materials contracts it received. “The demand environment for nuclear solutions in defense, clean energy, and medical markets is unprecedented,” Rex Geveden, president and CEO of BWXT, said in the […]

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States would test nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” with other countries, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright clarified this did not mean explosive tests. “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are systems tests,” Wright said in the interview last week on […]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) last week asked President Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) not to “shield” nuclear weapons programs “from independent oversight.” During the confirmation hearing for Vice Adm. Richard Correll to be STRATCOM commander last week in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Warren said the nation’s nuclear […]

There have been reports since 2019 on Russia and China’s potential noncompliance with the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, one of President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense nominees said in Senate testimony Tuesday. Robert Kadlec, Trump’s nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for nuclear deterrence, chemical, and biological defense policy and programs, mentioned the reports […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced Tuesday it was adding the U.K.’s Westley Group as a strategic supplier to support the U.S. submarine industrial base under the AUKUS agreement. The announcement was made by the submarine manufacturer during day one of the Indo Pacific International Maritime Expo in Sydney, Australia. According to a release on HII’s […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) gave the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) a year to brief the board on improvements to safety at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s  pit facility in New Mexico. The nuclear safety watchdog, in a letter to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright with […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS), the Bechtel-led contractor team that oversees the Y-12 National Security Complex, is looking at office space near the facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. CNS recently took in expressions of interest (EOI) from potential suppliers of office space located within five to 20 miles of the Y-12 complex at the Department of […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has formally told Secretary of Energy Chris Wright that the board plans to remain active on safety despite being down to a single member. The DNFSB’s acting chair, Thomas Summers, left the small agency when his term ended Oct. 18. The Summers’ exit leaves Patricia Lee as the […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite some signs of hope, as of Exchange Monitor ‘s Friday deadline, there is not a vote scheduled in the Senate to reopen the government. That is despite a Republican senator’s confidence that would happen. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a quorum of reporters […]

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) introduced a bill last week to prohibit the United States from conducting explosive nuclear tests, a move aimed at countering recently-announced plans of President Donald Trump. The bill was proposed shortly after Trump announced he has directed the Pentagon to resume nuclear testing on pace with other countries. “Donald Trump has […]

Next month, Air Force personnel from the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (AFB), Ariz. in the Sonoran Desert plan to show industry representatives examples of B-52H carriage equipment. This will be equipment that the service is looking to modify for the future AGM-181 Long Range Standoff (LRSO) nuclear […]

General Dynamics (GD) last Friday reported strong third quarter financial results largely due to its Marine Systems segment, continuing a sturdy run of top and bottom-line gains all year. The shipbuilding segment, up 14%  and 13% respectively on the top and bottom-lines, benefited from construction of the Navy’s Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and Virginia-class attack […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Tuesday its Los Alamos National Laboratory selected tech companies Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NVIDIA to develop and deploy two new supercomputers. The two computers, named “Mission” and “Vision,” will be used for modeling and simulations at the lab.  “Mission” will be used to assist NNSA research without […]