ARLINGTON, Va. —The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in January completed its first low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead, which now awaits a final design review in Texas before the agency can ship it to the Navy, an agency official said here Tuesday.
Production of the W76-2 warhead, a modified version of the recently refurbished W76-1, is conducted at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, John Evans, NNSA acting assistant deputy administrator for stockpile management, said in a question-and-answer session at the ExchangeMonitor’s annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
The initial weapon now requires a final review before the NNSA can declare it an official “first production unit.” After that review, slated for February, the agency can begin preparations to send the weapon to the Navy. Like the much higher-yield W76-1, the W72-2 will fit on Trident II-D5 missiles carried aboard Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
In January, when it acknowledged it had started building the first W76-2, the NNSA said it would start delivering the weapon to the Navy by Sept. 30. The DOE branch has not said exactly how many W76-1 missiles will be converted into the W76-2, only that it is a “small number.”
Evans said the Department of the Defense requires the NNSA to finish work on the W76-2 warhead in fiscal year 2024.
“The military requirement is for us to complete by 2024,” Evans said in response to an audience question. If “we complete early, so much the better. We will not be late. Once we start, we’re going to ramp up activities and complete as soon as we can.”
Congress approved $65 million for the weapon in the current fiscal 2019, as the White House requested.vThe NNSA last year thought it would need another $60 million for the W76-2 in fiscal 2020, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in an appropriations markup hearing in April 2018.
The Trump administration plans to release at least an outline of its 2020 budget request in March, Weapons Complex Morning Briefing‘s affiliate publication Defense Daily has reported.
