Lockheed Martin wants to build solid rocket motors to compete with the military’s two current main suppliers, Northrop Grumman’s Orbital ATK and L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne.
“We are endeavoring as a defense company to create another supplier,” James Taiclet, the president of Lockheed Martin, testified at a Sept. 20 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee’s cyber, information technologies, and innovation panel in response to a question from panel Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.).
If the deal comes off, Lockheed would be a purveyor of rocket motors used in missiles, including those that carry nuclear warheads like the Trident II-D5 sea-launched ballistic missile and LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. Existing Trident missiles use Northrop rocket motors while Sentinel will use a three-stage solid rocket configuration, of which Northrop makes the first and second stages. Aerojet is developing the third post-boost propulsion system for the missile. Lockheed is also a Sentinel supplier to prime contractor Northrop.
The National Nuclear Security Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority have officially designated the two reactors of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee as the sole site for the production of tritium for use in U.S. nuclear weapons.
At one point, the NNSA considered irradiating 5,000 tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBAR) a month between Watts Bar and the nearby Sequoyah Nuclear Plant. The rods are the source of weapons tritium.
A Sept. 14 filing in the Federal Register officially scraps that plan in favor of irradiating up to 5,000 TPBAR a month, split between Watts Bar Unit 1 and Unit 2. These reactors have irradiated TPBAR since 2003 and 2021, respectively. Since TVA would irradiate a maximum of 2,500 TPBARs in any one reactor, this would involve the use of both Watts Bar reactors. Under this decision, TVA will not irradiate TPBARs for tritium production at the Sequoyah site.
Raymond C. Mjolsness, a theoretical physicist and applied mathematician and longtime member of the Theoretical Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, died Sept. 13, according to an obituary posted online by Boakes Funeral Home in New Jersey. He was remembered in an obituary for his contributions to the National Nuclear Security Administration-run lab and as a “patient mentor and insightful collaborator … and an excellent trombone player,” the obit says.
Mjolsness was born in Chicago in 1933 and grew up in several places including St. Louis, Mo., and Helena, Mont. He lived in Los Alamos from 1958 to 2014, with occasional moves elsewhere to teach. From 1967 until 1969 he taught theoretical cosmology at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. He moved back to Los Alamos in 1969, where he lived until 2014. He then moved to Enumclaw, Washington, where he lived until his death.
President Biden on Sept. 21 nominated Melissa Dalton as the new undersecretary of the Air Force, the service’s number-two civilian behind Secretary Frank Kendall.
Before her current job, which Dalton began in March last year, she was the acting assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities, a position in which she led the Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review.
If confirmed, Dalton would replace Gina Ortiz Jones, who resigned in March. A Center for Strategic and International Studies alumna, like Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, Dalton has also served as policy adviser to the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul; country director for Lebanon and Syria in the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy; and an intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Richard W. Mies received the 2023 John S. Foster, Jr. Medal, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Kim Budil announced Wednesday. The 8th recipient of the Foster Award, Mies has served as a member of the LLNL Board of Governors since 2004 and is being recognized for his “exceptional and inspirational career” dedicated to national security, nuclear deterrence, and scientific innovation, Budil said in a statement announcing the award. Mies will be recognized at a ceremony at Livermore on Oct.18.
Each year, the Foster Medal recipient receives a citation, a gold medal bearing the likeness of John S. Foster Jr., and a $25,000 cash award. Past honorees include pioneers in nuclear security, military strategy, and arms control.
Mies served a 35-year career in the Navy, eventually leading U.S. Strategic Command for four years. After retirement in 2002, he served as a senior vice president of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and as the chairman of the Department of Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee. He currently serves as chairman of the U.S. Strategic Command Strategic Advisory Group and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory national security science directorate advisory board. He is also on the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control.
