National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved about $425 million in funding above the president’s request for nuclear-weapons infrastructure in fiscal year 2022 — money that corresponding appropriations bills would not yet allow the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend. The authorized funding came from an amendment to the committee’s 2022 National Defense Authorization […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would have to report to Congress about the benefits of competitively awarding management and operations contracts for nuclear weapons sites by March 1, if the House’s version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who holds the seat recently vacated by longtime Armed Services […]

Construction of plutonium pit factories should continue more or less as planned for another year-and-a-half, until the Joe Biden administration wraps up a nuclear posture review and the Savannah River Site delivers a baseline cost estimate for a pit factory there, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.  “We are sort of […]

The House Armed Services Committee wants the Air Force to review its approach to the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, to include identifying potential steps for reducing costs and introducing more opportunities for competition in the operation and maintenance phase. The panel’s draft version of the next National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) notes the effort […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would be authorized to spend over $425 million more than requested for infrastructure in 2022, if a Republican amendment proposed for the next National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, announced his amendment on Monday, two days before […]

A wildfire that started last week at the Nevada National Security Site was still burning over about 490 acres north of the Site’s area 12 at deadline Monday. “The fire is not burning, and has not burned, in any contaminated areas,” the site wrote in a press release on Friday. “Due to inaccessibility of the […]

While the management contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has ordered its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by this fall, the legacy nuclear cleanup contractor at the site had not, at deadline. Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) “encourages vaccinations against COVID-19 among its employees and […]

NorthStar Medical technologies, Beloit, Wis., inked a $37-million cooperative agreement with the National Nuclear Security Administration to produce the medical isotope Molybdenum 99, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency announced Friday. NorthStar, which had to put up matching funds to get the $37 million from the agency, will use the cash to produce the isotope […]

Swift and Staley may yet keep a key small business support contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky after the Court of Federal Claims last week granted motions sought by the contractor in a lawsuit.  A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday issued a written opinion, not yet publicly available, in an appeal Swift […]

The Democrat-led House Armed Services Committee has proposed authorizing a little more funding than requested for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s portfolio of nuclear weapons programs in fiscal year 2022, according to a copy of the chairman’s mark. Under the draft National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would be authorized […]

Jill Hruby, who became administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration in the second year of the global COVID-19 pandemic, praised the Los Alamos National Laboratory this week for requiring lab personnel to get vaccinated against the disease. “I applaud the decision that Dr. Mason and Triad have made to protect their people from this […]

An ad hoc committee of the South Carolina legislature was scheduled to discuss on Aug. 24 which of the counties surrounding the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., will share in a $600 million federal plutonium settlement. “I want to make sure our friends from Aiken understand that Aiken County is not the only consideration […]

Shortly after the House and Senate united to protect the Department of Energy’s inertial confinement fusion program from some proposed austerity next fiscal year, the program’s emblematic National Ignition Facility shattered its own record for neutron yield. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced the milestone this week, about a week after the Aug. 8 shot […]

Operations, including work supporting plutonium pit manufacturing, are back on at Los Alamos’ PF-4 plutonium facility following a 200-gallon flood precipitated by an untrained worker operating a wet van system in the future pit factory. “After three weeks the positive pressure circulating chilled water (PPCCW) system has been restored, with all affected processes being operational […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has released a sources sought note seeking information about a new uranium reserve program that Congress earlier this year ordered the agency to establish. According to the note, the reserve would be a stockpile of uranium hexafluoride converted from newly produced, domestic natural uranium acquired from deposits at existing sites. […]

Shortly after the House and Senate united to protect the Department of Energy’s inertial confinement fusion program from some proposed austerity next fiscal year, the program’s emblematic National Ignition Facility shattered its own record for neutron yield. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced the milestone Tuesday, about a week after the Aug. 8 shot in […]

Earnings rose at Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News, Va., in the 2nd quarter, which the shipbuilder and Department of Energy contractor attributed in part to COVID-19’s effects last year on the Virginia-class attack submarine program. Net earnings for the second quarter ended June 30 were $129 million, compared with $53 million in the second quarter of […]

A Republican bid to add the better part of $4 billion for construction of plutonium pit factories to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget failed in the Senate in the Senate this week. A trio of defense-minded Republicans proposed the multiyear funding first as an amendment to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved Tuesday, then […]

Five new-to-the-organization faces will join the new Los Alamos directorate in charge of turning the lab into the first national center for plutonium pit production since Rocky Flats ceased production in 1989. Three of these five managers were to be on the job Monday, with two colleagues to follow later this month and next, according […]

This week, not long after senior nuclear-weapons managers gathered outside of Washington and lamented programmatic gear-grinding caused by what they called premature attempts to pin down costs, the House Armed Services chair asked the president to consider shrinking the arsenal, in part over concerns about its affordability. The Biden administration’s forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review should […]

Bradley Wallin will lead Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons programs, settling a succession that began when Kim Budil was promoted to lab director earlier this year, the design lab announced this week. Separately, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that Jeff Harrell, the federal manager for the agency’s Sandia Field Office, retired in […]

Bradley Wallin will lead Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons programs, settling a succession that began when Kim Budil was promoted to lab director earlier this year, the design lab announced Monday. Separately, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that Jeff Harrell, the federal manager for the agency’s Sandia Field Office, retired in July. […]

On Monday, not long after senior nuclear-weapons managers gathered outside of Washington and lamented programmatic gear-grinding caused by what they called premature attempts to pin down costs, the House Armed Services chair asked the president to consider shrinking the arsenal, in part over concerns about its affordability.   The Biden administration’s forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review should […]

Five new-to-the-organization faces will join the new Los Alamos directorate in charge of turning the lab into the first national center for plutonium pit production since Rocky Flats ceased production in 1989. Three of these five managers were to be on the job Monday, with two colleagues to follow later this month and next, according […]

A Republican bid to add the better part of $4 billion for construction of plutonium pit factories to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget failed in the Senate on Sunday.  The funding was proposed as an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure bill that at deadline Monday appeared headed for a final vote in the Senate […]

ALEXANDRIA — Congress should not relax legal deadlines to produce plutonium pits this decade, even though the National Nuclear Security Administration has acknowledged it won’t meet at least one of them,nuclear-weapons managers here said this week. “I would say no,” Michael Thompson, said here Wednesday when asked whether Congress should change the law so that […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would essentially receive its 2022 budget request under a spending bill the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up Wednesday, matching the funding the full House approved last week. Unlike the House, however, Senate Appropriators approved the $72 million the Joe Biden administration sought for the planned W93 submarine launched ballistic missile […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — Materials for the third and final Nightshade subcritical plutonium test at the Nevada National Security Site have shipped out from the Los Alamos National Laboratory ahead of a shot planned for the fall, the head of the lab’s weapon’s program said here this week. Nightshade C had been scheduled to fire in […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — Whatever changes the Joe Biden administration’s nuclear posture review prescribes to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the U.S. national defense strategy, the nuclear production complex will have the same needs as it does now, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s defense programs office said here Tuesday. “I recognize […]

Frank Rose is officially principal deputy administrator of the the National Nuclear Security Administration, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency announced this week. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm conducted a virtual swearing in for Rose, who lives in Massachusetts, according to a tweet by Jill Hruby, herself sworn in as administrator of the National […]