U.S. Certifies Rebuilt Warhead for Nuclear Stockpile

The U.S. Energy Department has certified a nuclear warhead rebuilt with the first replacement plutonium “pit” for entry into the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration said yesterday (see GSN, July 3).

The W88 nuclear warhead employs the replacement plutonium core — the trigger for the nuclear weapon — and a replacement gas transfer system.

The agency disassembled the weapon and examined its components using experimental tools and models run on supercomputers.  It was then reassembled at the NNSA Pantex Plant in Texas using a pit produced by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The project was part of the U.S. Stockpile Stewardship Program “to ensure the reliability, safety and security of … nuclear weapons without underground testing,” according to a NNSA press release.

“Rebuilding this W88 was an enormous undertaking that took NNSA over a decade and required the tremendous scientific and engineering expertise of the entire nuclear weapons complex,” NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said in the release.  “I am proud that we were able to get the job done and accomplish this great feat with the W88” (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, Sept. 27).

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