Global Security Newswire

The United States has carried out a flight test involving a Joint Test Assembly for the B-83 nuclear gravity bomb, the National Nuclear Security Administration said yesterday (see GSN, June 25).

A B-2 bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri flew the assembly -- a non-nuclear device incorporating many systems of an actual B-83 weapon -- to the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada. The device's functions were recorded at the testing location by various data collection components, including a telemetry monitor expected to provide information for a reliability analysis created at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

Joint Test Assembly “tests are an integral part in ensuring that all [nuclear] weapon systems perform as planned and designed and that our stockpile remains safe, secure and effective,” NNSA Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator Brig. Gen. Garrett Harencak said. in a press release (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, Aug. 12).