The National Nuclear Security Administration finished building a non-nuclear prototype of the B61-12, a refurbished version of the oldest deployed U.S. nuclear weapon that will homogenize four existing versions of the nuclear gravity bomb.
The semiautonomous DOE nuclear weapons agency announced the milestone late last week in a press release. Personnel assembled the B61-12 first production capability unit Aug. 25 at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, which the Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security manages.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) previously referred to “first production capability units” as “first production prototype assemblies.” The agency debuted the new term in its 2021 budget request, released in March. These units differ from full first production units, which include a nuclear-explosive package. B61-12’s full first production unit is scheduled to be finished in November 2021, the NNSA has said.
A first production capability unit helps workers at Pantex get hands-on experience assembling nuclear weapons that contain new or replacement components. A full first production unit is a proof-of-concept version of a nuclear weapon that is taken apart soon after it is assembled to prove its design and assembly line are ready for mass production.
In 2019, NNSA delayed the B61-12 program — as well as the W88 Alt 370 program to refurbish the larger of the Navy’s two submarine-launched ballistic-missile warheads — by about two years, because commercial capacitors intended for use with the weapons were declared unfit for duty by NNSA and the Department of Defense.
The B61-12 nuclear first production unit slipped to fiscal year 2022 from fiscal year 2021, while the W88 Alt 370 first production unit, now scheduled for July 2021, slipped to fiscal year 2021 from fiscal year 2019. Government fiscal years begin Oct. 1. Pantex finished the W88 Alt 370 first-production capability unit in April and announced the milestone late that month.
The NNSA plans to refurbish some 460 B61 bombs and about 350 W88 warheads under these programs, the Washington-based nonprofit Federation of American Scientists estimates. The production phase of the programs will last at least seven years and wrap up in the second half of this decade, according to NNSA’s 2020 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan.
Including Air Force and NNSA work, B61-12 will cost between roughly $11.5 billion and $13 billion over about 20 years, according to DOE and the Pentagon documents. The NNSA’s estimates its share of the bomb’s cost is about $8 billion.
The NNSA and the Pentagon estimate W88 Alt 370 will cost about $4 billion over roughly 10 years, including up to $3 billion in NNSA expenses.
