Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Pantex Plant wrapped up production of the W80-1 Alt 369, which replaced limited life components for the warhead that tips the Air Force’s AGM-86b Air Launched Cruise Missile, the Amarillo, Texas, plant said recently. Pantex announced the milestone in a press release earlier this month. Limited life components include tritium reservoirs, neutron generators and power sources. […]

The acting head of DOE nuclear weapons programs on Thursday passed on a chance to say that a planned plutonium pit factory in South Carolina will cost as much per unit as a cheaper pit factory planned for New Mexico. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans a larger pit factory, the Savannah River Plutonium […]

Active COVID-19 cases at the National Nuclear Security Administration fell almost 47% in June as vaccination rates across the country continued to inch upward and life returned to something resembling pre-pandemic normalcy at the start of the summer. Active cases at the DOE nuclear weapons agency had at deadline fallen to 51 in the last […]

National Nuclear Security Administration shipments of transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., remain suspended following a February drum sparking incident, a spokesperson for the disposal site said Wednesday. “Shipments from LANL-NNSA [Los Alamos National Laboratory-National Nuclear Security Administration] remain paused,” a […]

The United States and Russia seek to “lay the groundwork for future arms control” with bilateral talks that will start “in the near future,” the presidents of both countries said in a joint statement this week following talks in Geneva. In the English-language statement released Wednesday by the White House, President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, […]

By suggesting that the Navy cancel a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, the service’s acting secretary imperilled arms control negotiations and undercut President Joe Biden, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said during a hearing this week. “Everybody at the Pentagon needs to understand the severity of the actions you have taken and its implications for the United […]

The House Armed Services Committee will hold its full committee mark-up for the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on September 1, pushing back the annual process due to the delayed submission of the president’s budget request. The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday also announced plans to have its defense and homeland security subcommittees […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., said Monday it is now licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enrich uranium to about 20% U-235 by weight in Piketon, Ohio — and that company plans a demonstration by early next year. Centrus is under contract to produce high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for the Department of Energy under […]

As far as the Department of Energy could tell this week, the hack of a small, veteran-owned consulting business in Albuquerque, N.M., did not compromise any National Nuclear Security Administration data. “The Department of Energy is aware of the cyberattack against Sol Oriens, a veteran-owned consulting firm whose clients include the Department of Energy/National Nuclear […]

The Air Force’s top nuclear procurement officer on Monday positioned the service’s effort to build its next nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile as a way to shore up the nuclear-industrial base for decades and create a weapon that arms control treaties can’t kill. The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the first lot of which which prime Northrop […]

The head of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee is dissatisfied with current legal checks on the President’s authority to launch nuclear weapons, he said in a hearing Wednesday, during which he otherwise offered no other indication that he was eager to disrupt current nuclear weapons policy. The President’s sole authority to launch U.S. […]

The Air Force’s top nuclear procurement officer on Monday positioned the service’s effort to build its next nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile as a way to shore up the nuclear-industrial base for decades and create a weapon that arms control treaties can’t kill. The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the first lot of which which prime Northrop […]

The head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board told federal contractors Thursday her agency could approve a memorandum of understanding on its “rules of the road” with the Department of Energy as early as next month. “We did have a great conversation with Deputy Secretary [David] Turk earlier this year and “it looks like […]

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense did not have advanced warnings about the acting secretary of the Navy’s memo last week that urged the service to cancel a planned nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile.  “I am not familiar with the memo nor was I consulted, but as soon as […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory published new research about how near-surface detonations can affect nuclear-weapon yields, the California-based design lab said Monday. The findings, summarized in a paper titled “the reflection of a blast wave by a very intense explosion,” were published last week in Proceedings A of the Royal Society Publishing. The authors are […]

“The bow wave has arrived” for the civilian nuclear-weapons budget, the Government Accountability Office warned Wednesday in a report that, amid recommendations for streamlining budget and project organization, made room for a we-told-you-so about the effects of deferring upgrades for nuclear weapons and their production infrastructure. “DOE’s appropriation for fiscal year 2021 includes a 23 […]

Rear Adm. John Mitchell (ret), whose decade-plus, post-Navy career with Bechtel National took him on a tour of senior leadership posts at defense-nuclear sites and Yucca Mountain, died June 1. He was 79. That is according to a short memorial post online that indicated Mitchell’s final arrangements would be handled by a funeral home in Alexandria, Va., […]

It will take about a month longer than previously thought for personnel at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to certify that a key component of the site’s planned plutonium pit factory can safely accept the higher volumes fissile material required to support the pit mission. The Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building (RLUOB) will be recategorized as a […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration cannot meet a legal requirement to make at least 80 new plutonium cores for intercontinental ballistic missile warheads in 2030, the agency’s acting boss told lawmakers Thursday. With the planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SPPPF) up to five years behind scheduled, “based on our latest information we assess that […]

Personnel at the Pantex Plant are building the first production unit for a major alteration of the larger of the Navy’s two submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads, the acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration told a House Armed Services panel Thursday. “I’m happy to report that as we speak today, the system first production […]

Among the highlights of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s detailed fiscal year 2022 budget request: it will cost more than double what the agency once estimated to convert a plutonium recycling plant in South Carolina into a factory for nuclear-weapon triggers; planned air- and sea-launched cruise missiles will share a nuclear tip; next year’s costs […]

Thanks to an easy victory this week’s special election, the Democratic Party maintains control of Mexico’s 1st Congressional District seat vacated in March when Deb Haaland resigned to become President Joe Biden’s secretary of interior. Democrat Melanie Ann Stansbury, a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, won 60% of Tuesday’s vote to defeat […]

The Department of Energy spending request put forward Friday by the Joe Biden administration for fiscal 2022 would increase funding for environmental cleanup of past weapons work at several National Nuclear Security Administration sites. The DOE Office of Environmental Management budget for physical cleanup of this legacy contamination would rise by about a third, to […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., shipped low-level waste to the Nevada National Security Site in May for the first time in nearly two years after the desert site reinstated a certification that was yanked in 2019 following disclosure that Y-12 had sent 32 containers worth of improperly labelled waste to the […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security will remain on the job at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two big production sites at least two months longer than planned and possibly as many as six, the agency announced Tuesday. The Bechtel National-led prime for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, […]

The head of Air Force Global Strike Command is not concerned that the next-generation warhead for the next-generation nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile will be delayed because of a projected delay with one of the two plutonium pit-production plants that will supply the new warhead’s core. In a webcast address to the public and press Thursday […]