The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has certified its first new low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead as battle ready.
In a Monday press release, the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency said it “successfully completed the First Production Unit (FPU) of the W76-2 warhead Feb. 22 at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas.”
The W76-2 warhead is a modified version of the recently refurbished W76-1 warhead line. The NNSA finished building the first of these low-yield variants in late January, an agency official said Feb. 15 at the ExchangeMonitor’s annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit. The agency can only declare that it has created an FPU after a post-assembly review that certifies the weapon is war-ready.
In its release, the NNSA said it would “complete the W76-2 Initial Operational Capability warhead quantity and deliver the units to the U.S Navy by the end of Fiscal Year 2019.” The agency has not said how many W76-2 warheads it will build, or how many of those it will deliver to the Navy by the Sept. 30 end of the current budget year.
An NNSA spokesperson, citing operational security, declined to say this week when the first W76-2 might ship to the Navy. The spokesperson did say that “no reviews following FPU are required by DOE/NNSA prior to shipment to the Navy.”
The NNSA’s W76-2 budget is $65 million in 2019. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said last year the NNSA thought it would need another $60 million for the weapon in fiscal 2020, which begins Oct. 1. The weapon will tip Trident II-D5 missiles carried aboard Ohio-class submarines.
At the Deterrence Summit earlier this month, John Evans, NNSA acting assistant deputy administrator for stockpile management, said the Department of Defense wants the civilian agency to deliver all W76-2 warheads by fiscal 2024, at the latest. Last year, in in its annual Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, the NNSA said it would continue the W76-2 program into that year.
