Personnel at the Pantex Plant are building the first production unit for a major alteration of the larger of the Navy’s two submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads, the acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration told a House Armed Services panel Thursday.
“I’m happy to report that as we speak today, the system first production unit for the W88 Alt-370 is being assembled,” Charles Verdon, the acting administrator, told the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee in prepared testimony.
W88 Alt-370’s first production unit, the proof-of-concept article that’s taken apart to demonstrate a design and its assembly line are ready for mass production, is supposed to arrive in July, the NNSA has said. The major alteration, which includes a replacement of the warhead’s conventional high explosives, was delayed because of performance issues with commercial-off-the-shelf capacitors.
The Senate Armed Services Committee this week approved Jill Hruby’s nomination to be administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and Frank Rose’s nomination to be principal deputy administrator of the agency.
Hruby is a former director of the Sandia National Laboratory who had a long career at the lab before rising to the top spot during the Barack Obama administration. Rose has held arms control posts in the Department of State and also worked in the Department of Defense. The full Senate had not scheduled a confirmation vote at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has deployed an anti-drone and anti-drone-operator system to stop unwanted flights over the uranium complex’s restricted airspace, the National Nuclear Security Administration wrote in a press release this week.
In 2018, the Los Alamos National Laboratory deployed an anti-drone system. Other DOE nuclear sites planned to follow suit. That was the year after the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Energy agreed to restrict drone flights within 400 feet of the lateral boundaries of seven DOE sites. In 2016, there was a series of drone overflights of the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
Consolidated Nuclear Security, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s prime contractor for the Pantex Plant in Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex has scheduled a free virtual forum for business owners and potential vendors on June 24 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., the company said in a press release Friday.
Those interested in the company’s latest Partners in Excellence forum must register via Webex to attend. The event is aimed at companies, including small businesses, that want help navigating the government procurement process. Among the scheduled attendees from the prime are: Drake Russell, National Nuclear Security Administration acting management and operating policy manager; Bill Tindal, CNS chief operating officer; John O’Connell, Supply Chain Management Center (SCMC) principal customer programs leader; and Robert Leuszler, SCMC senior manager.
U.S. nuclear officials and their Japanese counterparts met virtually the week before Memorial Day for the 13th annual U.S.-Japan Emergency Management Working Group. Shinichi Araki, director general of the nuclear disaster management bureau of the Cabinet Office of Japan, and Jay Tilden, deputy under secretary for counterterrorism and counterproliferation for the National Nuclear Security Administration, chaired the group.
The group agreed to: share lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic; exchange views on combining virtual and in-person capacity-building activities; and invite observers to in-person and/or virtual drills, exercises and trainings, according to a press release.
A national laboratories team used calcium apatite like a sponge to soak up uranium and other elements from the groundwater at a former uranium mill in Rifle, Colo., according to a press release from Sandia National laboratories.
The Rifle sites are about 180 miles west of Denver and are managed by DOE’s Office of Legacy Management.
The Nevada National Security Site has a new senior director of mission assurance, according to the president of the site’s prime contractor.
I would like to congratulate John Contardi on his new role as Sr. Director of Mission Assurance. John has extensive experience and will provide strong leadership to this role. We look forward to seeing his continued accomplishments in this new role.
— Mark Martinez (@nnssmark) June 10, 2021
