Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Earnings were mixed at Leidos, Reston, Va., in the third quarter, which the government defense and services company said Tuesday was affected by challenges to contract awards by business rivals. Net income for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $164 million or $1.17 a share, down from $208 million, or $1.43 a share, in the […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Boards sent the Department of Energy a reminder about overdue safety reports for several nuclear weapon sites, according to a letter dated Oct. 20. DOE’s delay is “affecting the Board’s safety oversight,” Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) chair Joyce Connery wrote in the letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wants to set aside a cell at Pantex where people can practice arms control verification technology, agency Administrator Jill Hruby said at an arms control conference this week. Formally called a user facility, the converted cell will be an “for those ideas that advance beyond the research phase and […]

Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, 68, a Rhodes scholar and theoretical physicist who helmed the Pentagon between 2015 and 2017, died of a heart attack Tuesday  at his home in Boston. At the time of his death, Carter was director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy […]

Garret Harencak will replace Mark Martinez as president of Mission Support and Test Services effective Nov. 1, the Honeywell-led prime contractor for the Nevada National Security Site announced this week. The Exchange Monitor reported on Monday that Martinez would step down. Harencak joins Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) after four years as vice president […]

NNSA report calls for reform of management and ops contracts; says parents cos. of site management teams of little help Future contracts for management of big nuclear-weapon sites should be 10 year deals with five-year base and option periods and should not include annual contractor award fees, which can create conflicts of interest between national […]

A woman who assisted with the attempted sale of classified nuclear-powered attack submarine secrets should get three years in prison, her lawyer said Wednesday. A three year sentence “would be consistent with, and in some cases greater than, sentences imposed for other accomplices, as well as even some principle offenders,” Diana Toebbe’s legal counsel wrote […]

The National Nuclear Security administration will create a new risk management strategy with the Pentagon, mandate more regular infusions of new technology into nuclear-weapons design and manufacture and build new science facilities, according to the Nuclear Posture Review the Joe Biden administration released Thursday. Those are the three pillars of the plan laid out to […]

Mark Martinez planned to retire as president of Mission Support and Test Services, the Honeywell-led prime contractor for the Nevada National Security Site, according to people familiar with Martinez’s plans. A spokesperson for Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) did not reply to a request for comment. Martinez has been president of MSTS since the […]

By Dan Parsons Two contractors were exposed to highly hazardous beryllium, a metal used in nuclear weapons, while performing renovations at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico recently.  On Aug. 30, the subcontractors, working in Building 983 room 122, a conference room, were not wearing proper personal protective equipment, Luke Frank, a spokesman for Sandia […]

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday denied a protest by a women owned small business seeking to overturn a $53-million award at the Y-12 National Security Complex to Sigma Science. Vector Resources — which lists its headquarters and mailing addresses in a pop-up business space in Erie, Pa., and a strip mall in Engelwood, Fla., […]

The Department of Energy in December plans to start a competition for a long-term contract to purchase energy-dense uranium fuel, with an eye toward awarding a deal in July, the agency told prospective bidders last week. In slides briefed during an Oct. 13 industry day and published online subsequently, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said […]

The Department of Energy and its prime contractor for the two main U.S. civilian nuclear-weapons production sites agreed in early October to end a contractual dispute before it escalated to court, according to a recently published decision. According to a notice dated Oct. 6 and published subsequently, attorneys for the Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security […]

Congress should not authorize or fund a nuclear-tipped, lower-yield sea-launched cruise missile or save a megaton-class gravity bomb, the White House said again this week. The message was part of a statement of administration policy about the Senate’s version of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which like the version of the […]

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Principal Deputy Administrator Frank Rose visited Tajikistan in early October, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency wrote in a statement this week. Rose participated in a ribbon cutting at the Fotehobod automobile border-crossing point in the Mastchoh district of Tajikstan’s Sogd region, near the country’s western border with Uzbekistan. […]

In the nine months just ended, renationalization of the U.K. nuclear weapons complex cost Lockheed Martin’s Space segment more than three quarters of a billion dollars, the company reported Tuesday. Bringing the British weapons program fully back into the government’s arms dropped sales in Lockheed Space by some $865 million over the past nine months, […]

The nuclear-powered submarines Australia wants will likely include U.S.-built nuclear reactors and be preceded by a joint U.S.-Australian command of a Virginia-class attack submarine, a member of the House Armed Services Committee said in a recent virtual event. “I think the way to do that is to just say that BWXT will produce those reactors, they’ll […]

There is a changing at the guard in upper management ranks of Oak Ridge, Tenn.,-based Navarro Research & Engineering as Ryan Overton, formerly of GEM Technologies, becoming executive vice president, gradually takes over the role from industry vet Cathy Hickey who plans to retire from the company next year. “Ryan is fabulous,” Hickey said in […]

In an amendment to the Senate’s biggest defense bill of the year, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wants to force another debate about whether Congress should authorize the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Navy to build a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile. Van Hollen’s amendment would bar development of the missile, citing the cost. President […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy is considering the purchase of up to 25 metric tons annually of high-assay low enriched uranium, the office said Thursday in a request that solicited both information about and sources of the material. The office envisions at least a six-year contract for the material, to begin “as […]

The U.S. national security strategy released Wednesday did not contain the Joe Biden Administration’s unclassified nuclear posture review or call for extreme changes to the nation’s nuclear-weapons philosophy. “Nuclear deterrence remains a top priority for the Nation,” reads the 48-page, 23,000-word national security strategy, which devotes roughly 400 words to nuclear weapons. “The United States […]

The Pantex Plant could soon rid itself of plutonium sent to the Amarillo, Texas, nuclear weapons depot from the Savannah River Site, the government’s independent nuclear safety agency said recently. In late August, according to a report published this week by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Pantex prime contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) demonstrated […]

The prime contractor at the Savannah River Site last week signed a project labor agreement with a consortium of 19 labor unions for construction of the larger of the National Nuclear Security Administration plutonium pit plants. The Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions and the Augusta Building and Construction Trades Council inked the accord in Augusta, […]

During her ongoing travel overseas this week, Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, visited the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan: a former nuclear test site for the Soviet Union.  The NNSA shared a few photos from the visit on Twitter.   John Clauser, a physicist who spent time at Department of Energy […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration planned to start work on a competition for a pair of new contracts to manage its main nuclear-weapon sites in 2023 and 2024, the agency said this week. In the meantime, Oct. 1 marked the official start of big-money extensions to Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS), the Bechtel National-led incumbent at […]