The Cold War has ended, but it has been largely replaced by new and evolving threats to our national security.

Our country and the Laboratory have seen great changes over the past 10 years. For the foreseeable future, nuclear deterrence remains one of the cornerstones of our national defense. Our ability to maintain the security of the nation is in part attributable to our technical capabilities and adaptive nature. The Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is a strong proponent for the development and implementation of technical solutions to problems affecting global security. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), as part of the NNSA team, contributes to meeting this nation’s nuclear needs and its other security needs.

For nearly a decade, the Laboratory, in partnership with its sister Defense Programs laboratories and DOE/NNSA, has maintained the enduring nuclear stockpile without nuclear testing. National science-based Stockpile Stewardship is the program through which the safety, reliability, and performance of the United States nuclear stockpile is assured. Through Stockpile Stewardship and other programs, LANL develops and applies the best science and technology to meet national security requirements by creating and adapting capabilities to address critical mission needs.

We begin the period covered by this Institutional Plan with a reorganized and newly appointed senior executive team, including a new principal deputy director who functions as the Laboratory’s chief operating officer; a new deputy director for national security; and four new associate directors in the fields of weapons physics; weapons engineering and manufacturing; operations; and administration. We have established new Laboratory Councils on National Security and Science & Technology to assure strategic focus, management excellence, and effective resource allocation throughout the Laboratory. Furthermore, we have initiated work to streamline and strengthen our institutional budget planning; we have instituted program evaluation systems to align with our principal customer, NNSA; and we have developed measures to strengthen discipline and accountability in our stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

The challenges faced by the Laboratory include · maintaining the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile within policy constraints;
· developing technology in support of nuclear nonproliferation and ensuring the security of nuclear materials throughout the international community; · providing techniques to detect and identify nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and to respond to counterterrorism requirements; · developing advanced science and technology to be applied to national security needs; and · conducting work safely and securely within an aging facility infrastructure.

Since the publication of the previous Institutional Plan, the Laboratory has continued its record of achievement and contribution to national security. The following achievements are among the notable accomplishments in the last year:

° For the fifth year in a row, the Director of the Laboratory, along with his counterparts at Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories, assessed the nuclear weapons stockpile as safe and reliable without requiring nuclear testing.

° The Laboratory completed 11 pits as part of the process of re-establishing a national pitmanufacturing capacity. We are on schedule to deliver the first War Reserve certifiable pit for the W88 in fiscal year 2003.

° The Laboratory completed the first ever three-dimensional comprehensive weapons system simulation on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s 12 teraops machine—well ahead of schedule.

° During FY2001, LANL fired eight major hydrodynamic tests of nuclear weapon primaries using surrogate materials. Five of these were related to stockpile systems; 19 additional experiments were performed in direct support of the stockpile-related hydrotests. Furthermore, four of the hydrodynamic experiments were conducted using the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DARHT).

° The Atlas Pulsed-Power Generator, designed to provide experimental access to some nuclear weapon operating conditions, reached an important milestone, discharging 28.7 million amperes of current into a test load, duplicating a world record, and completing acceptance testing.

° LANL’s research into bacillus anthracis and the Laboratory's ability to classify anthrax strains were significant forensic contributors to the nation’s response to the anthrax threat after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

° The Laboratory continued to make important advances in technologies supporting counterproliferation and counterterrorism, including standoff chemical analysis, precision thermal measurements, imagery in extremely low light, and advanced radio frequency analysis techniques.

° LANL led national efforts to apply modeling and simulation techniques to analyze large, complex systems and their response to a range of possible terrorist scenarios. The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) will provide an enduring technical support to the government’s homeland security mission.

° In partnership with the DOE Joint Genome Institute, the Laboratory completed the sequencing of human chromosome 16.

This Institutional Plan specifically addresses the need to revitalize our workforce and facilities; to balance safety and security requirements; and to allocate resources effectively between existing and unanticipated time-urgent national issues. The Laboratory’s most important assets are committed employees who continue to support our national security mission with some of the best scientific and technical work in the world. Our Institutional Plan also emphasizes cultivating new employees and enhancing the productivity of existing experienced employees. Our objectives are to continue our tradition of maintaining a diverse workforce and to sustain hiring of earlier career scientists, engineers, and technicians. In addition, we will aggressively replace critical, more seasoned skills lost through retirement or the pressures of a highly competitive labor market.

Concurrently, our infrastructure must also be revitalized. In response to the NNSA 10-year Facilities and Infrastructure Revitalization Initiative, the Laboratory has developed a Comprehensive Site Plan. This plan prioritizes the facilities and infrastructure needing replacement or refurbishment. Near-term construction and revitalization projects at the
Laboratory include:

° The Metropolis Computing Center. When finished, this facility will house the Q Machine. Construction of the center is projected to be under budget and ahead of schedule because we are using the design-build process and rigorous project management.

° The Q Machine. The Laboratory has signed a memorandum of understanding with Compaq Inc. expediting necessary modifications to the existing contract with Compaq in order to acquire the first 10-teraops segment of the 30-teraops machine. The delivery of this segment will begin in early February 2002. With the completion of the Metropolis Computing Center and delivery of the Q Machine, we look forward to a significant increase in the computational capability available for weapons certification simulations and other Stockpile Stewardship needs.

° DARHT. The second axis of DARHT is under construction while the first axis is already in use for hydrodynamic experiments. When it is complete, the second axis will allow hydrodynamic testing of stockpile systems with dual views and four temporal images—enhancing our ability to sustain certification of the stockpile with non-nuclear tests.

° The new Nonproliferation and International Security Center. This center, currently under construction, is scheduled for completion in calendar year 2002. It will greatly expand the size and security of Laboratory facilities that house threat-reduction and counterterrorism activities.

LANL has always performed at its best when the scientific and technical challenges are daunting and when issues of the day involve unanticipated time urgencies. These are the conditions we face today as the nuclear stockpile continues to age and we are confronted with new threats of biological and chemical weapons and terrorist attacks of the sort that occurred on September 11, 2001. Meeting the national security challenges of today and tomorrow with technical solutions will require careful balancing between experimental sciences and large-scale modeling and simulation.