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LANL: National Security: Nuclear Weapons

DEDICATED TO OUR MISSION

Stockpile Stewardship

What exactly does stockpile stewardship mean? For Los Alamos, it means that every year the Laboratory must assure that the nuclear weapons in the nation's stockpile are safe and reliable. In other words, Los Alamos must "guarantee" that the weapons will function as they were designed to, even though the stockpile is older and some of the weapons have replacement components.

Finding Problems...

nuclear missiles In order to provide this guarantee, scientists and engineers examine samples of each weapon type in the stockpile to see what changes might have occurred. They use non-nuclear experiments, laboratory tests and computer simulations to assess the meaning of any changes.  

...And Fixing Them

The very difficult aspect of accomplishing this mission is that the Laboratory must rely on its experimental and modeling & simulation capabilities——it cannot resort to conducting an actual nuclear test like those used during the development of the weapons.

Since October 1992, the United States has observed a moratorium on all nuclear testing.

Without the ability to test, Laboratory scientists are relying more and more on non-nuclear experiments and on bigger and faster computers and improved computer models to assess changes to weapons in the stockpile.

STEWARDSHIP MISSION

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Managed by the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, the stewardship mission involves all the nuclear weapons laboratories and plants nationwide.

Most of the weapons systems in the stockpile were designed at Los Alamos, so scientists and engineers here are involved in virtually every aspect of stockpile stewardship.

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