Production Technology

NNSA continues to assure the safety, security, and reliability of the existing stockpile as it progresses towards a newly responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure as called for in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and described in the vision for Complex Transformation. The work is one of the key providers of design-to-manufacturing and technological readiness capabilities for this transformation effort.  NNSA closely integrates planning and project selection prioritization with other nuclear weapon related programs.

NNSA looks at five different aspects of nuclear weapons in order to ensure their reliability:

• Stockpile – NNSA ensures the availability of future manufacturing capabilities for the production of weapon components containing special materials.
• High explosives and weapon operations – NNSA  provides technology-enabled solutions to modernize processes, materials, and facilities and use science-based design, engineering, and manufacturing to achieve a high level of complex integration, efficiency, and quality, with a reduced cost to ensure the readiness of its high explosives and other weapons operations.
• Nonnuclear Readiness – NNSA develops and deploys product development and production capabilities required to support nonnuclear product requirements for nuclear weapons.
• Tritium Readiness – NNSA reestablishes and demonstrates a new, assured supply of tritium to support the nuclear weapons stockpile.
• Advanced design and production technologies – NNSA selects, matures, develops, integrates, and demonstrates cost-effective, new technology and enhanced design-through-production-based capabilities for the stockpile, and the sites that support these efforts.