The Weapons System Capability Pillar strengthens the institutional strategic research in capabilities underpinning the Laboratory’s weapons program that address emerging national security challenges.
The focus of this Pillar will be on integrated system research and development targeted at building an agile, responsive capability that could design, develop, manufacture, and certify conceptual systems with deviations in design of existing stockpile weapons needed to meet emergent threats and manufacturing production complex constraints. This will position us to develop the next generation of systems, building increasingly on our advanced knowledge of weapons physics and engineering.
Designer Capability and Certification Goal: Steer the systematic capabilities underpinning both the physics and engineering of nuclear weapons in the new global environment
Systems Integration Goal: Advance systems engineering capabilities to allow us to consider trade spaces for designs that use enhanced safety features, performance margins, and materials manufacturability
Manufacturing & Analysis Goal: Comprehensive and integrated manufacturing and analysis from a weapons systems perspective