The U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has awarded contracts to two BWX Technologies (BWXT) subsidiaries to manufacture naval nuclear reactor parts and fuel, the company announced Wednesday. The subsidiaries, Nuclear Operations Group and Nuclear Fuel Services, received the contracts with options worth a total of approximately $3.1 billion; the former is responsible for the reactor components portion, while the latter handles the naval nuclear fuel. BWXT said it has received about $1.2 billion of the award this year and expects to receive the remaining amount over the next two years.
The Nuclear Operations Group’s naval nuclear reactor manufacturing work will support Ford-class carrier and Virginia-class submarine construction, Nimitz-class carrier refueling, and preliminary Ohio-class submarine replacement work, the company statement said. The Nuclear Fuel Services work will involve the manufacture of fuel for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, it said.
BWXT announced last week that Nuclear Fuel Services has received a $241.5 million contract from the National Nuclear Security Administration to downblend 10.4 metric tons of highly enriched uranium for use as commercial nuclear reactor fuel.
NNSA Conducts Conventional Test to Advance Nuclear Explosion Detection Capabilities
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said it conducted Tuesday an experimental conventional explosion as part of a series of tests intended to improve underground nuclear explosion detection capabilities. The explosion, the fifth in the Source Physics Experiment (SPE) series conducted at the Nevada National Security Site, involved detonation of chemical explosives equivalent to 5,000 kilograms of TNT 76 meters underground, the NNSA said in a press release.
Seismic data gathered from the experiment through technologies such as infrasound, drone-based photogrammetry, and synthetic aperture radar, are made available to researchers for analysis through the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, the NNSA said. It noted that experiments conducted near the location of previous underground nuclear tests allow researchers to compare data from conventional and nuclear explosions, which helps the U.S. identify low-yield nuclear tests as opposed to other seismic activity.
The SPE team consists of researchers from the Nevada National Security Site; the Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia national laboratories; the University of Nevada-Reno; Weston Geophysical Corp.; and the Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the announcement said.
