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GAO-02-889R 1 (2002-07-03)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaalzz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: £ Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 July 3, 2002 Congressional Requesters Subject: NNSA: Nuclear Weapon Reports Need to Be More Detailed and Comprehensive The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), spends more than $5.5 billion a year to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapon stockpile through an effort known as the Stockpile Stewardship Program. Because the United States is no longer designing and building new nuclear weapons, extending the life of each of the nine weapon types in the current stockpile is a key component of this program. To accomplish this task, NNSA will have to (1) determine which components will need refurbishing to extend each weapon's life; (2) design and produce the necessary refurbished components; (3) install the components in the weapons; and (4) certify that the changes do not adversely affect the safety and reliability of the stockpile. Life extension efforts for each weapon type can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take many years to complete. Life extensions are carried out by three laboratories that perform research and development (R&D), design, and certification tasks and four production plants that disassemble weapons to be refurbished, manufacture and install the weapon components to be replaced, and reassemble the weapons. NNSA manages life extension efforts using a multipart nuclear weapon refurbishment process, referred to as the 6.X Process, that separates the life extension process into phases. The first three phases-6.1 Concept Assessment; 6.2 Feasibility Study and Option Down- Select; and 6.2A Design Definition and Cost Study-are primarily R&D activities and studies that determine what changes are needed to ensure that a weapon system remains a safe and reliable part of the nation's nuclear stockpile. The next three GAO-02-889R NNSA Nuclear Weapon Reports Page 1

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