Current Nuclear Weapons Development

Long-Range Standoff Weapon milestone A decision expected this month

A milestone A decision on the Air Force's Long-Range Standoff Weapon is expected this month, service officials told Inside the Air Force this week.

During a May 25 Defense Acquisition Board review, Pentagon acquisition executive Frank Kendall asked the Air Force to further examine the cost of the LRSO's missile body, Air Force spokesman Maj. Rob Leese confirmed in a June 16 email to ITAF.

“It is not uncommon for a DAB to generate follow-on actions,” Leese said. “A decision will be finalized in an acquisition decision memorandum after actions are complete.”

The milestone A decision will help outline the cost of the missile and determine the acquisition strategy. While the Pentagon is responsible for developing the missile, the weapon's warhead acquisition is managed by the Energy Department.

The milestone A review was expected to take place in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016. The service previously delayed the review from the first quarter of FY-16, arguing the move would allow the service "a realistic manpower and facilities ramp-up," Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Melissa Milner wrote in a Feb. 12 email to ITAF. The service also pushed the technology, maturation and risk-reduction phase from the first quarter of FY-16 to the third quarter of FY-17, according to budget documents.

The Long-Range Standoff Weapon would replace the nuclear-armed AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile. The weapon would be deployed through the 2060s and the Air Force has plans to procure between 1,000 and 1,110 LRSOs, about double the size of the existing ALCM fleet, according to a fact sheet published last year by the Arms Control Association. The weapon system will be able to penetrate and survive an advanced air defense system from significant range, according to the Defense Department's fiscal year 2017 budget request.

While the B-52 bomber is the only platform currently certified to carry the ALCM, the LRSO is being designed to integrate on the B-52, B-2 and next-generation B-21 bomber, Leese said. Although the B-21 has not been developed yet, the Air Force cannot configure the B-21 to host the legacy ALCM due to future survivability, reliability, and availability challenges, he said.

Nonproliferation groups and some congressional Democrats have waged a fight against the LRSO, arguing its capabilities are redundant and potentially destabilizing. The Air Force has argued the missile complements the stealth bomber's capabilities, rather than repeats them, and extends the bomber fleet's range while complicating air defenses.

Attempts to cut or fence off funding for the missile in the FY-17 defense authorization acts have failed so far. Last week, a group of Senate Democrats led by Edward Markey (D-MA) filed an amendment that would prohibit funds for the weapon and its warhead. The amendment was not included in Tuesday's passage of the Senate defense authorization act.

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) also proposed an amendment in the House defense appropriations bill which would decrease funding for the missile by $75.8 million and increase the spending reduction account by the same amount. That amendment was defeated Thursday morning during House debate on the bill.
 
https://news.usni.org/2016/06/24/benedict-uk-exit-european-union-wont-hinder-nuclear-sub-collaboration

While focusing on extending the operational life of the Tridents, Benedict said his office also is beginning work on a new strategic missile to replace them sometime in the future
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Benedict 'concerned' where overall triad commonality effort is going
June 24, 2016

A senior uniformed Navy official is "concerned" where the overall commonality effort is going in replacing the nuclear triad.

Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, strategic systems program director, said his team sent information to the bidder's library this past winter, which the Air Force can use as it conducts the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent competition. The information gives specific examples of how the Air Force can leverage commonality candidates from the Navy's Trident II D5 life-extension program.

Benedict spoke with reporters after a June 24 breakfast organized by Peter Huessy in Washington.

The Air Force is replacing its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile through the GBSD program, which aims to field a new missile in 2030. The Navy plans to replace the D5 LE sub-launched ballistic missile about 10 years later.

Benedict said he has recommended the Air Force take advantage of Navy program products and processes that were developed as part of the D5 LE program.

The solutions were identified during a commonality study the Navy and Air Force conducted. The acquisition executives from both services and the U.S. Strategic Command chief directed the study.

"A joint assessment team was stood up comprised of Navy and Air Force technical and programmatic experts as well as key external stakeholders," Benedict said. "The team assessed potential benefits, risks and cost implications while considering requirements and [concept-of-operations] system flexibility and adaptability acquisition strategy and life cycle cost.”

Both the House and Senate marks of the fiscal year 2017 defense policy bill include language on triad commonality.

The House version "recognizes the substantial cumulative cost to accomplish this modernization and continues to seek opportunities to find efficiencies and cost savings when possible, without reducing capability or delaying modernization plans. Therefore, the committee continues to support efforts to pursue appropriate commonality between components and subsystems for the Air Force's and the Navy's strategic missile systems."

However, the House notes that this commonality comes with risks. Specifically, "a technical failure in a common component or subsystem [could] lead to widespread impacts to two legs of the triad," the committee writes.

The committee points to a report provided by the office of Defense Department acquisition chief Frank Kendall in December 2015, which, the lawmakers note, laid out "promising areas for pursuing commonality" in Air Force and Navy programs. However, the committee "is concerned that the report lacked detail about the systems, subsystems and components that are being considered," according to the bill.

The report also failed to lay out "decisions on the specific common systems, subsystems or components that would be pursued or time lines for making decisions on commonality," according to the bill.

"The committee is concerned that decisions on commonality may not be completed in time to inform acquisition cycles, and that without sufficient oversight and encouragement from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Congress, the services will revert to historical stovepipes and miss the opportunity to inform acquisition strategies," the report accompanying the bill states.

Therefore, the committee is calling for the defense secretary to submit a report by Sept. 30 that contains the date on which a "decision on incorporating common components and technologies must be made." The defense secretary is instructed to coordinate with the Air Force and Navy secretaries and the head of U.S. Strategic Command on the report, which should also include the Pentagon's plan for incorporating these components and technologies.

Despite the consensus inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill to pursue nuclear triad commonality, challenges remain, according to Benedict.

"We have different cultures and both have long histories in success working largely independently," he said.
 
Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17) Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Reentry Vehicle Applications Program (RVAP) Technology Studies
Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)..

https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/draft_fy17-18_icbm_rvap_baa_soo1.pdf
 

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Air Force now eyeing August for LRSO milestone A decision


The Air Force hopes to secure a blessing by August from Pentagon leaders -- previously expected in June -- to launch the Long-Range Standoff Weapon acquisition, another slight delay to the anticipated competition to develop and procure a fleet of about 1,000 new cruise missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads the service believes could cost about $8.3 billion.

On May 25, Pentagon acquisition executive Frank Kendall reviewed the Air Force's request to transition the new cruise missile program into the technology maturation and risk reduction (TMRR) phase of the acquisition process and directed the service to further examine projected costs. While the service had previously expected to address outstanding questions associated with the LRSO milestone A review in a few weeks, the Air Force now believes it will be "early- to mid-August," according to a Pentagon official.

In preparation for the milestone A review, the Office of the Secretary of Defense prepared an independent cost estimate. While details of that estimate are not public, OSD transmitted to Congress in March a previously unreported document on the LRSO program.

"Total investment costs for LRSO are preliminary and the independent cost estimate is not complete," the report states. "An early draft estimate for LRSO total investment costs (development and procurement) provided to Congress in FY-15 was $8.3 billion."

The Air Force, according to the report, "plans to procure approximately 1,000 LRSO cruise missile bodies" that could be mated with a nuclear warhead. "In alignment with U.S. nuclear employment strategy, the LRSO quantity will support U.S. Strategic Command nuclear mission requirements, [provide] necessary spares to meet operational availability requirements, and supply sufficient non-nuclear missile bodies to demonstrate weapon system confidence levels through ongoing ground and flight tests."

An LRSO inventory of this size would be approximately twice the number of nuclear-armed Air-Launched Cruise Missiles in the current Air Force inventory. The LRSO program would allow for a stockpile of cruise missiles that could be expended in non-nuclear testing to provide "critical reliability data for maintaining LRSO as a credible nuclear deterrent during its lifecycle," according to the report.


"As a result . . . the number of cruise missile bodies being procured significantly exceeds the number of nuclear warheads being produced," according to the report. "The number of nuclear-armed LRSO cruise missiles (i.e. mated to a nuclear warhead) is expected to be equivalent to the current ALCM nuclear force," the report states.

The four-page document is titled "Report to Congress on the Number of Long-Range Standoff Weapons as Specified by Section 1657 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016."

While the Air Force is responsible for developing the LRSO cruise missile body, the Energy Department is responsible for the weapon's nuclear warhead. DOE's W80-4 Life Extension Program aims to use the existing insensitive high explosive design of the ALCM as well as incorporate modern components and adopt "enhanced surety options." In a March report to Congress, DOE estimated the LRSO warhead was scheduled for first-unit production in FY-25. The estimated development and production cost for the LRSO warhead -- from FY-16 through 2032 -- is $8.6 billion, according to the report. That, along with the cruise missile body, would bring the LRSO program cost to about $17 billion. -- Jason Sherman
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http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2016/07/15/Lockheed-gets-US-Navy-Trident-missile-contract/8671468586297/
 
Air Force releases long-awaited GBSD, LRSO solicitations


The Air Force today released requests for proposals for the two key nuclear modernization efforts -- the Long-Range Standoff Weapon and the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.

LRSO will replace the Air Force's Air-Launched Cruise Missile, which was fielded in the early 1980s. The new weapon is meant to have greater range, survivability and reliability and the service expects to field the missile by 2010.

According to a July 29 press release, the service expects to select up to two prime contractors for the program's development phase. The two companies will compete through preliminary design review, at which time one design will be chosen for production.

The service intends to buy 1,000 new cruise missiles and expects the LRSO program could cost about $17 billion for the missile and its nuclear-capable warhead.

Meanwhile, the service expects its plan to replace the current Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with a new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent will save nearly $20 billion in cost avoidance over five decades. Like for the LRSO, the service expects to award up to two engineering and manufacturing development contracts in the later part of fiscal year 2017.

The service expects to begin deploying the GBSD in the late 2020s and maintain the missiles through 2075.

The Defense Department's plans to modernize its nuclear enterprise have stirred some controversy on Capitol Hill, with some Democrats urging President Obama to rethink the current plan. The LRSO in particular has become a target by some, with five House Democrats noting in a recent letter to the administration that the program's funding be cut.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/n-korea-test-fires-ballistic-missile-korea-defence-001626440.html
 
Air Force Ballistic Missile Upgrade Said to Be Stalled Over Cost


"WASHINGTON --- The U.S. Air Force’s program to develop and field a new intercontinental ballistic missile to replace aging Minuteman III weapons is stalled over Pentagon concerns the service underestimated the cost by billions of dollars, according to a defense official familiar with the program.

The service is grappling with a substantial gap between the cost estimate its officials prepared for an Aug. 3 meeting of the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board and one crafted by the department’s office of independent cost assessment, said the official, who asked not to be identified because of the internal debate.

The Air Force last year estimated that the new ICBM program would cost $62.3 billion for research, development and production of as many as 400 missiles as well as command and control systems and infrastructure. Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. are all competing to build the new ICBMs.

The uncertainty over costs stems from the fact that the U.S. has not built new ICBMs, which are designed to carry nuclear warheads, for decades. The funding dilemma will likely add to debate over whether coming administrations can afford a “bow wave” of surging nuclear and non-nuclear weapons spending after 2021. Nuclear spending alone could surpass $1 trillion over 30 years if operations, support and construction are included. "

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/176236/usaf%E2%80%99s-new-icbm-program-stalled-over-cost.html
 
"US moves nuclear weapons from Turkey to Romania"
by Georgi Gotev, Joel Schalit | EurActiv.com

Aug 17, 2016 (updated: 10:47)

EXCLUSIVE/ Two independent sources told EurActiv.com that the US has started transferring nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey to Romania, against the background of worsening relations between Washington and Ankara.

According to one of the sources, the transfer has been very challenging in technical and political terms.

“It’s not easy to move 20+ nukes,” said the source, on conditions of anonymity.

According to a recent report by the Simson Center, since the Cold War, some 50 US tactical nuclear weapons have been stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, approximately 100 kilometres from the Syrian border.

During the failed coup in Turkey in July, Incirlik’s power was cut, and the Turkish government prohibited US aircraft from flying in or out. Eventually, the base commander was arrested and implicated in the coup. Whether the US could have maintained control of the weapons in the event of a protracted civil conflict in Turkey is an unanswerable question, the report says.

Another source told EurActiv.com that the US-Turkey relations had deteriorated so much following the coup that Washington no longer trusted Ankara to host the weapons. The American weapons are being moved to the Deveselu air base in Romania, the source said.

Deveselu, near the city of Caracal, is the new home of the US missile shield, which has infuriated Russia....
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Source:
http://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/us-moves-nuclear-weapons-from-turkey-to-romania/
 
This news about the moving of nuclear weapons to Deveselu military airbase in Romania has been debunked by now.
1. The picture at Euractiv.com shows a now abandoned British nuclear bomb WE.177.
2. Deveselu military airbase has no runway anymore, only 3 helipads. The base employs the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System now.
3. There are no hangars and bunkers to host B61 or any bombs.
4. Deveselu is operated by the US Navy, not USAF.
Link: https://twitter.com/rajfortyseven/status/766330091420786688
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/n-korea-test-fires-sub-launched-missile-yonhap-214636610.html
 
https://news.usni.org/2016/08/25/document-report-congress-columbia-class-submarine-program
 
http://www.janes.com/article/63891/satellite-imagery-suggests-pakistan-building-uranium-enrichment-facility
 
bring_it_on said:
Air Force releases long-awaited GBSD, LRSO solicitations


The Air Force today released requests for proposals for the two key nuclear modernization efforts -- the Long-Range Standoff Weapon and the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.

LRSO will replace the Air Force's Air-Launched Cruise Missile, which was fielded in the early 1980s. The new weapon is meant to have greater range, survivability and reliability and the service expects to field the missile by 2010.

According to a July 29 press release, the service expects to select up to two prime contractors for the program's development phase. The two companies will compete through preliminary design review, at which time one design will be chosen for production.

The service intends to buy 1,000 new cruise missiles and expects the LRSO program could cost about $17 billion for the missile and its nuclear-capable warhead.

Meanwhile, the service expects its plan to replace the current Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with a new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent will save nearly $20 billion in cost avoidance over five decades. Like for the LRSO, the service expects to award up to two engineering and manufacturing development contracts in the later part of fiscal year 2017.

The service expects to begin deploying the GBSD in the late 2020s and maintain the missiles through 2075.

The Defense Department's plans to modernize its nuclear enterprise have stirred some controversy on Capitol Hill, with some Democrats urging President Obama to rethink the current plan. The LRSO in particular has become a target by some, with five House Democrats noting in a recent letter to the administration that the program's funding be cut.
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Grey Havoc said:
bobbymike said:
http://webjeju.com/theguardian/2016/09/17/obama-to-decide-on-cuts-to-us-nuclear-arsenal-in-october/
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So the LRSO is likely dead. Why am I not surprised?
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Options on the table include reducing the number of deployed strategic warheads, slimming down the reserve stockpile, cutting military stores of fissile material available for making new warheads, and putting off some modernisation plans, including the a controversial air force programme for developing an air-launched cruise missile.
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