Department of Energy FY 2012 Congressional ... - The FIRE Place

The Readiness Campaign capabilities are integral to completing weapons system component design and
manufacturing. Successful completion of DSW milestones for war reserve production relies upon the
timely introduction of production capabilities funded under the Readiness Campaign. To coordinate the
timed delivery of new manufacturing capabilities with first use scheduled weapon activities, Readiness
Campaign program managers integrate technology planning and prioritization with weapon program
plans during annual planning meetings and ad hoc meetings throughout the planning cycle.
The Readiness and Engineering Campaigns coordinate investments in parallel with the Advanced
Simulation and Computing and the Science Campaigns to manage weapon technology and component
maturation development activities in time to meet mission requirements. The Component Maturation
Framework, a a corollary process to the Predictive Capabilities Framework, provides a construct for the
complex integration across programs and campaigns for maturing technologies and providing
manufacturing capabilities for planned insertion of components into Life Extension Programs (LEP),
Limited Life Component Exchanges (LLCE), or Joint Test Assemblies (JTA) Readiness Campaign
planning also considers Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities (RTBF) facility acquisition schedules
to coordinate selection and insertion of production capabilities to reduce facility lifecycle costs.
The tritium portion of the mission continues to direct resources to optimize the life-cycle management of
tritium to meet national security needs. The Readiness Campaign coordinates with Department of
Defense (DoD) on determining Post-Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Stockpile requirements, and
continues to provide annual updates to DoD on the tritium production status. The NNSA will meet
future tritium requirements through a combination of harvesting tritium obtained from dismantled
nuclear warheads and irradiating tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBAR). Readiness will
also optimize its planning, execution, and resource allocations to improve, where practical, the
availability of tritium and its byproducts.
The Readiness Campaign relies upon the materials management organization to be responsible for
establishing the life cycle management of accountable nuclear materials by identifying, assessing, and
prioritizing material needs and availability for use in meeting strategic defense goals. Materials
management identifies shortfalls as well as efficiencies and productivity improvements in material
processing capabilities that are required to support material feed requirements. The Readiness
Campaign program, through its interaction with the materials management organization, addresses
deployment of technology development investments needed for such requirements.
Benefits
Within the Readiness Campaign, there are five subprograms: Stockpile Readiness, High Explosives and
Weapon Operations, Nonnuclear Readiness, Tritium Readiness, and Advanced Design and Production
Technologies; each make unique contributions to the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA)
Unit Program Number 41, the stockpile, and the nuclear security enterprise. Collectively, these five
subprograms provide key technology-based capabilities needed to manufacture weapons and sustain the
manufacturing infrastructure.
Stockpile Readiness develops and deploys manufacturing capabilities and special processes for
components containing special materials and advanced component qualification and acceptance.
a The Component Maturation Framework is described in additional detail in the Engineering Campaign section of the budget
submission.
Weapons Activities/
Readiness Campaign Page 134
FY 2012 Congressional Budget