June 26, 2015

Subcritical Experiment Activities at the Nevada National Security Site

The National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Stockpile Stewardship Program seeks to maintain confidence in the safety, security, and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons without nuclear testing. As part of the program, NNSA conducts subcritical experiments to obtain scientific data on the behavior of nuclear weapon materials. These experiments are conducted at the Nevada National Security Site's U1a Complex. 

In the past decade, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos) has been the design authority responsible for overseeing subcritical experiments, while National Security Technologies, LLC, (NSTec) has been responsible for fielding and executing the experiments. Twenty-eight subcritical experiments have been performed between 1997 and 2014.

Nothing came to our attention to indicate that the Department of Energy had not effectively managed the subcritical experiment activities at the U1a Complex. To the contrary, we noted that both Los Alamos and NSTec used project management tools to plan and track the cost, scope, and schedule of the two most recent subcritical experiments. Although both organizations used project management tools for planning and conducting the subcritical experiments, we found there were some inconsistencies in budgeting methods for the treatment of contingency/management reserves between Los Alamos and NSTec.

Topic: Management & Administration