U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command airmen from the service’s bases in Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska on Wednesday launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, the Air Force announced.
The operational test involved an unarmed ICBM with a single test re-entry vehicle containing a telemetry package, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The re-entry vehicle reached the Marshall Islands roughly 4,200 miles away from the launch site, the Air Force said.
The service said these test launches are meant to collect data to verify the reliability and “operational credibility” of the ICBM weapon system, a key part of the U.S. nuclear deterrent as the land-based leg of the nuclear triad. The Air Force’s Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent Program, to be deployed in the late 2020s, will replace the aging Minuteman III ICBM.
Raytheon Chief Thomas Kennedy told investors his company is reviewing its options when it comes to teaming on the Air Force’s Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, which is intended to replace the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile as the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad.
“Right now, our strategy is we are engaging with multiple teams and seeing where our best solution is relative to being able to make one of these primes a winner,” he said on the company’s first quarter earnings call Thursday.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have all said they plan to compete as a prime contractors for the new ICBM. This year the Air Force is expected to downselect to two prime contractors on a risk reduction contract before selecting a single prime contractor in 2020, Kennedy says.
Los Alamos National Security, the contractor managing the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, should improve its work planning and control processes, the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said in a newly released enforcement letter to lab Director and contractor President Charles McMillan.
The April 19 letter said EA had evaluated three cases demonstrating work planning and control deficiencies, identifying issues that warrant further management attention by the contractor.
In one case, a subcontractor worked with inadequate hazard controls while replacing an uninterruptible power supply system. In another, the rigging straps of a railroad boxcar broke, dropping a load and resulting in a near-miss to an employee. The third event involved an asphalt roller that tipped over during repaving work.
“These three events suggest the need for continued attention to work planning and control, particularly with regard to effective hazard identification during job planning, document review by appropriate subject matter experts, and completion of required safety and health training,” Steven Simonson, director of EA’s Office of Enforcement, wrote to McMillan.
Simonson said his letter does not impose requirements on the contractor and is intended to “convey concerns with the LANS’ process to ensure adequate hazard identification, assessment, prevention, and abatement.”
Over one year ago, the Office of Enterprise Assessments concluded in a review that LANS’ work planning and control processes were adequate in identifying and controlling hazards in research and development, maintenance, operations, and other activities – but that despite making significant process in this area, LANL still had some problems implementing hazard controls.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General dismissed in a newly released inspection report allegations of security concerns at a facility that houses special nuclear material at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The April 20 report, made public Tuesday, said the IG had received a complaint about security issues at ORNL’s Building 3019, a facility that stores special nuclear materials – which are either plutonium, uranium-233, or uranium enriched in the isotopes uranium-233 or uranium-235. These concerns included claims that unauthorized personnel had access to the special nuclear material staging area; false alarms at the facility led to a less responsive protective force; and that managers “showed a lack of concern” over security issues.
The IG said that while some of the situations in the complaint exist, these adhere to approved procedures and the complainant likely did not fully understand the operations at the facility. For example, according to ORNL officials, the special nuclear material staging area was “not designed to prevent access, but to prevent unauthorized individuals from performing certain actions upon the SNM and to prevent the escape of such individuals.”
The IG also said it did not find any indications of a diminished response to alarms at the facility, or that managers showed a lack of concern – in fact, “the majority of employees we interviewed believed managers would respond appropriately to security issues,” it said.
The IG identified some concerns with vehicle searches at ORNL entry portals – specifically, two cases in which security officers did not fully complete vehicle searches involving sealed shipping containers. The report said a senior protective force official, in response to the finding, issued clarified procedures for such situations.
While there were false alarms in Building 3019, “due, in part, to the selection and configuration of alarm system components,” system upgrades already being made are due to be finished within a couple months, the IG said.
The IG said it was not making any recommendations in its report.
A Chinese citizen could face up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty on April 21 in U.S. federal court to attempting to illegally export a material that can be used in nuclear weapons programs, the Department of Justice announced.
Fuyi Sun, 53, violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by attempting to obtain and ship high-grade M60 carbon fiber without the necessary license. The material is largely employed for defense and aerospace purposes and is “strictly controlled” to deter its use in nuclear proliferation or terrorism, according to a DOJ press release. That includes requiring a license to export the carbon fiber to China.
Sun had sought carbon fiber for about six years and eventually made contact with a fake provider run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI), the release says. Over a period of years he on multiple occasions indicated means of avoiding U.S. intelligence while aiming to buy the material without a license. That strategy included using the term “bananas” rather than “carbon fiber” when communicating with undercover agents, according to DOJ.
During a sting operation in April 2016 in New York, Sun indicated he would direct the material purchased from the undercover ICE agents to the Chinese military and that he had been involved with the nation’s missile program, the release says. Sun paid the undercover agents a total of $25,000 for two cases of carbon fiber on April 12, 2016, then was arrested one day later.
Sun’s sentencing is scheduled for July 26 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
M60 carbon fiber can be used in production of rotors for gas centrifuges, the Institute for Science and International Security said in a 2014 analysis of a 2012 illegal export case.
The Department of Homeland Security and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) last week announced a new forensics capability to trace the origins of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium.
The new Plutonium Processing Signatures Discovery capability involves the replication of various plutonium conversion processes that result in the production of weapon-usable material with different characteristics – such as color or density, DHS said in a blog post.
These characteristics, called signatures, are then used to trace the plutonium’s point of origin. “This new capability will significantly improve our ability to trace the origins of plutonium, because it allows us to replicate individual nations’ processes,” DHS said.
PNNL, a Department of Energy laboratory in Washington state, said in its own news release that it would then analyze the plutonium samples and create a database of the material’s signatures for the DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. This office could use that information to identify sources of plutonium potentially confiscated from radioactive material smugglers.
“In the event of a nuclear weapon detonation, knowing where radioactive material came from can help investigators determine who’s responsible,” DHS said.
Steven Ashby, PNNL director, said in a statement that the new nuclear forensics capability “is four years in the making and the result of a great partnership and close collaboration between PNNL, DNDO, and the nuclear forensics community.”
Last February, Texas A&M University announced its researchers have developed another method to identify the origins of weapon-usable plutonium – through a radiochemistry process that separates plutonium from trace elements, which then help investigators identify specific types of production reactors. This project also received funding from the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.
