Although it will nationalize the operations of its Atomic Weapons Establishment next June, the United Kingdom still plans to carve out a role in its nuclear weapons complex for industry, which managed the establishment for most of the last 30 years.
“The new business model will see AWE [Atomic Weapons Establishment] plc continue to draw on private sector specialist support to strengthen capability as well as playing a key role in managing capital projects and contracts,” according to a Monday statement by U.K. Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace.
AWE Management Ltd — a consortium including Jacobs Engineering, Dallas; Lockheed Martin, North Bethesda, Md.; and Serco Group, Hook, Hampshire, England. — manages the U.K.’s Atomic Weapons Establishment now. The team was most of the way through a 25-year contract awarded by the British government in 1999 when the Ministry of Defence announced it would turn the Establishment into an arms-length body under government control.
Exactly what role the private sector will play going forward was not certain at deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The U.K. Defence Ministry will appoint new board members for the Atomic Weapons Establishment some time next year, according to Wallace’s statement.
The United Kingdom’s one-leg nuclear arsenal consists of Lockheed-made ballistic missiles armed with U.S. designed warheads and carried aboard stealthy submarines.
The British arsenal is in the middle of a refresh that will include new submarines and new warheads, the latter of which were to have commonality with the proposed, but presently unfunded, W93 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead the National Nuclear Security Administration wants to start designing in earnest this year.
A senior Pentagon official warned last month that without funding for the W93, the U.S. “couldn’t support the U.K. in the alignment of programs we have where we support them with non-nuclear as well as science and technology.”
