Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Air Force is examining how to reduce the massive civil works project costs that make up a significant part of the Northrop Grumman LGM-35A Sentinel future ICBM program, service officials said Wednesday. The service last week informed Congress of a 37% unit cost Nunn-McCurdy program breach — an increase in unit cost per missile […]

The Kansas City National Security Campus in Missouri, which manufactures most of the non-nuclear components of U.S. nuclear weapons celebrates its diamond anniversary next month. Initially dedicated by then-Senator Harry Truman in 1942, what began as a Pratt & Whitney plant building Double Wasp radial engines for a variety of World War II aircraft, the […]

There remains a “very real potential for a major nuclear accident at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant after two years of almost non-stop combat near the facility, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday. Addressing the council for the sixth time since the war began […]

National Nuclear Security Administration program offices do not consistently monitor performance of minor construction projects of fewer than $30 million in total cost, the Government Accountability Office found in a recent audit. From fiscal year 2019 through July 2023, NNSA offices undertook 414 minor construction projects that cost an estimated total of about $3 billion, […]

Through a partnership with Washington State University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are developing new ways to make its Operational Technology Assurance course, sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration, more realistic for attendees. The partnership resulted in development of a mock vintage-style glovebox, used daily by NNSA scientists to manipulate hazardous radioactive material, that students […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed a spending bill to keep agencies including the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration open until March 1. The Senate passed the bill 77-to-18 on Tuesday afternoon. The House followed quickly after, approving the month-and-a-half stopgap budget 314-to-108.  The measure will keep DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory […]

The Department of Energy prime for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is shopping around for subcontractors interested in building a new emergency operations center. The request for information and expressions of interest by Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions was published online Wednesday.   Responses are due by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 5 […]

After more than a year of trying, International Atomic Energy Agency teams experts on Monday were granted access to the sixth and final reactor hall at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Situated on the frontlines of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the plant has been under Russian occupation almost since the beginning of Moscow’s February 2022 […]

Michael Lempke is now leading Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Australia business, where he will shepherd the shipbuilder and nuclear-site manager’s portion of the tripartite AUKUS agreement between the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Lempke, most recently president of the company’s Nuclear and Environmental Services group, took the post on Jan.1, Huntington Ingalls (HII) said in a statement […]

Below is Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s annual digest of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) performance evaluation summaries: the agency’s report cards for its big contracts, which explain how much management and operations entities earned for their performance. The Monitor has provided links to NNSA source documents. Kansas City National Security Campus, Kansas City, […]

Northrop Grumman has conducted a live, static-fire test of a stage-two solid rocket motor for the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile at the Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Complex in Tullahoma, Tenn., the company announced Jan. 16. Northrop is the Air Force’s Sentinel prime contractor and is responsible for building the solid rocket motor for […]

There were at least six separate contamination incidents at Los Alamos National Laboratory between December and January, according to a series of safety watchdog reports.  Most recently, two incidents occurred within a week in early January in Technical Area 55, according to summaries by the lab. Just before 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 4 an employee […]

Nuclear naval reactor builder BWX Technologies has named former Boeing executive Nicole Piasecki to its board of directors effective January 2, 2024. Piasecki spent 25 years with Boeing in various senior leadership positions, including vice president and general manager of the Propulsion Systems Division for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. She currently serves on the boards of […]

“Oppenheimer,” the 2023 movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer, first director of what is now the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was honored as the year’s best movie drama on Jan. 7 at the Golden Globe awards ceremony. Cillian Murphy, the actor who portrayed the scientist, was named best actor for his performance and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is extending the public comment period regarding a new 14-mile electric power transmission line serving the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Public comment on the Los Alamos National Laboratory Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project Draft Environmental Assessment opened on Dec. 19 and will be extended for another month […]

More than six months after his nomination, and just shy of a month after his Senate confirmation, Adm. Bill Houston on Thursday took over as director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program that develops reactors for Navy warships and submarines. Houston took over for Adm. Frank Caldwell, who became director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion […]

An agreement that gives Qatar ownership of all intellectual property generated by a Texas A&M University campus there drew criticism recently when the latest contract outlining the deal was published online. In a lengthy expose on the arrangement between the university and Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, the Free Press, an outlet […]

Congressional leaders on Jan. 7 announced they had reached an agreement in principle to fund the federal government for the nine months that remain in fiscal year 2024. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) agreed to limit federal spending in the fiscal year that runs through […]

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chair Joyce Connery repeatedly “undermined” the first board’s executive director of operations in ways “inconsistent” with federal law, according to a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Inspector General. The 15-page report on “actions inconsistent with the delegation of functions required by the Atomic Energy Act,” and dated […]

Parsons Corp. announced the award of a $21 million task order by the National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Infrastructure to continue managing construction projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  The task order, from Parsons’ $160 million ceiling-value Enterprise Construction Management Services (ECMS) contract awarded in 2022, is for design and construction management support at […]

Sometime between October and December, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s programs to refurbish its B61 bombs and W88 warheads reached the halfway mark, an agency spokesperson said Monday. Production of the B61-12 Life Extension Program and W88 Alt 370 reached the halfway mark, with at least 50% of the required weapons produced and delivered to […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting a year’s worth of spending limits and policy for national security programs, including those at the Department of Energy.  Under the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) the National Nuclear Security Administration is authorized to spend $24 billion, or about […]

In early December, National Nuclear Security Administration Deputy Administrator Frank Rose completed a multiday visit to Hawaii to meet with senior military officials regarding regional security and nuclear non-proliferation issues.  Rose met with U. S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) officers and staff from Dec. 4-8, in a series of meetings focusing on the regional security environment, […]

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed a new tool to model how blowing up a nuclear might stop an asteroid from slamming into Earth. Published in December in the Planetary Science Journal, the Livermore research introduces a new way of digitally simulating the energy deposition from a nuclear device on an asteroid’s surface, the […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., recently received recertification as a Star-level participant in the Department of Energy Voluntary Protection Program, marking more than a decade in the safety program. The Department of Energy created the program to recognize occupational safety and health protection at its various campuses. Since it began the […]

After a year of mounting uncertainty in the effort to upgrade the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, the Air Force did not test fire the new Northrop Grumman-built LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile in 2023. Reached this week by the Exchange Monitor, spokespersons for the Air Force and Northrop Grumman declined to answer […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration last month announced that production of the B61-12 Life Extension Program and W88 Alt 370 have met the halfway mark.  Led by Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) at the Pantex Site in Texas, the program has churned out half of the necessary rehabbed nuclear weapons needed to arm Air Force bombers […]