Tag Archives: NNSA

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said at the agency’s recent job fair outside Washington, D.C. that new hiring efforts may help NNSA address staff shortages, Federal Times reported Wednesday. Gordon-Hagerty noted that NNSA is looking to hire more than 100 people to help the agency fill positions that will soon be vacant within five years after 40 percent of its workforce reach retirement age. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration has allowed Pantex Plant’s High Explosives Pressing Facility to proceed with full-scale operations after a series of readiness assessments. The Texas-based facility would replace the nuclear weapons plant's aging machining and pressing equipment, and consolidate operations to lessen the motion of explosives across the plant, the Department of Energy said Thursday.

The National Nuclear Security Administration issued three strategic documents providing information on how the agency and its partners can form an integrated approach to modernize the U.S. nuclear security enterprise to address emerging threats. “We are at our highest level of activity since the Cold War, and these three documents will ensure that our enterprise of some 44,000 employees has a common vision and an integrated approach to strengthening the nation’s nuclear security,” Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, under secretary for nuclear security and NNSA administrator, said in a statement Monday. 

The Nuclear Weapons Council authorized development for the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) effort to extend the W80-4 warhead's service life. NNSA, a unit of the Department of Energy, will work with the Department of Defense to develop and determine the final sustained design for the warhead via testing and analyses, the department said Thursday.

The Trump Administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget request will include $16.5B for programs under the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, officials said Monday.

The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration has approved a $1.1B concept design for the Advanced Sources and Detectors program involving subcritical experiments to maintain the nation’s nuclear deterrent, DOE said Thursday. The ASD project will support the U.S. stockpile stewardship program and revolve around generating high-speed and high-fidelity images of subcritical experiments that don’t produce nuclear yield.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has confirmed that the Department of Energy commenced production of the W76-2 nuclear weapon at NNSA’s Pantex Plant in the Texas Panhandle, NPR reported Monday. Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the W76-2 is a variant of the U.S. Navy’s submarine launched W76-1 weapon which has a yield of nearly 100 kilotons.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has finished updating all of the U.S. Navy’s W76-0 nuclear warheads to the W76-1 configuration, Defense News reported Thursday. The W76-1 warhead is intended to be installed onto the re-entry vehicle for the Trident II D5 ballistic missile launched via submarine.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is investing $50M in grants supporting research and development efforts on nonproliferation over the next five years. NNSA said Thursday it will provide $5M per year to two university research consortia to integrate academic studies with National Laboratory applications in nuclear science and security.

The U.S. Air Force approved the production of a new guided tail-kit assembly for the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb. The service branch said Friday, its Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center will conclude the TKA's manufacturing development phase and proceed with production under the Milestone C transition. AFNWC developed the TKA and will perform integration with the bomb built by the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.