A 2020 spending proposal passed Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee directs the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to tap the independent group of JASON scientists for at least one, and perhaps two, new studies.
After the Pentagon ditched the JASON contract in April following more than 50 years, the NNSA picked up the deal with MITRE Corp. through January: long enough for the group to finish three nuclear security studies for the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch.
If the subcommittee bill becomes law, the NNSA would have to hire JASON’s Defense Advisory Panel to study the agency’s Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program: a long-running effort to achieve sustainable nuclear fission using high-energy laser facilities at three DOE national laboratories and the University of Rochester in New York state.
The NNSA is performing its own study on the program, but “the Committee believes it is necessary for an independent, comprehensive review to assess the prospects of achieving ignition for stockpile stewardship,” according to a detailed bill report released Monday. “If it is determined that ignition science activities are necessary to maintain the nuclear stockpile, the review shall recommend and prioritize research areas that would improve the ICF program’s pursuit of ignition.”
The subcommittee bill recommended some $565 million for ICF and high-yield programs in 2020, up about 3.5% from 2019 and nearly 15% more than the White House sought.
Fission ignition has so far eluded NNSA scientists, but the agency has always maintained that the ICF program has value without it. High-powered lasers turned on metallic targets can approximate some of the conditions found in a nuclear explosion, giving the agency a way to assess the explosive potential of special nuclear materials such as plutonium without resorting to nuclear explosive testing.
Elsewhere in the bill report is another opportunity for the NNSA-funded JASON, this time within the Weapons Activities line item.
The subcommittee wants either JASON’s Defense Advisory Panel or a federally funded research and development corporation to study the cost of the NNSA’s plan to replace the W78 intercontinental ballistic missile warhead with a W87-1 warhead. The current fleet of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles can use both types of warheads, but the Pentagon wants to move to W87-1 for the next-generation of silo-based missiles, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.
Whatever group got the W87-1 study would have to provide Congress with an unclassified report on its findings 120 days after the subcommittee’s bill becomes law.
The subcommittee recommended about $53 million for work on W87-1: less than half the roughly $112 million the NNSA sought for 2020. W87-1 warheads will be fresh manufactures of an old intercontinental ballistic warhead design. The NNSA plans to use 2020 funding to continue development engineering for the warhead, which is slated to to tip future Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent silo-based missiles. The Pentagon plans to deploy the next-generation missiles around 2030. The W87-1 would replace the W78 warheads used on the current generation of Minuteman III ICBMs.
