The US Department of Defense has announced that the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been granted a contract valued at approximately $2.18 billion.
The contract is specifically for “technical and engineering support necessary to maintain and sustain the Trident II Strategic Weapon System Mark 6 Guidance Subsystem“.
Moreover, it will support the strategic guidance, navigation, and control research needed for the subsequent full-scale development of the Mark 7 Guidance Subsystem and additional undertakings related to the Columbia/Dreadnought submarines.
“The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is awarded a $2,183,965,410 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for technical and engineering support necessary to maintain and sustain the Trident II Strategic Weapon System Mark 6 Guidance Subsystem and support the strategic guidance, navigation, and control research and development efforts required to enable follow-on, full-scale development of the Mark 7 Guidance Subsystem, Columbia/Dreadnought ship construction integration efforts, and reentry subsystem.
This contract award also benefits a foreign military sale to the United Kingdom.
Work will be performed in Cambridge, Massachusetts (80%); Pittsfield, Massachusetts (5%); Washington, D.C., (1%); Odon, Indiana (2%); Huntsville, Alabama (1%); Cape Canaveral, Florida (5%); St. Petersburg, Florida (2%); and various other locations (less than 1.0% each, 4% total). Work is expected to be completed Sept. 30, 2028.
United Kingdom funding in the amount of $5,180,553 will be obligated on this award. The remainder of the funding will be obligated subject to the availability of funds. No funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The dollar value of the contract, including all options, if exercised, is $2,183,965,410.
This contract is a sole source acquisition pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1) and was previously synopsized on the Systems for Award Management website. Strategic Systems Programs, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.”
The project, under this contract, is anticipated to conclude by September 30, 2028.
The proposed Mark 7 Guidance Sub-system involves a new re-entry vehicle for the proposed new W93 warhead being developed at Los Alamos. Designing and building a new multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is a complex task which will have to be tested in flight (without a nuclear detonation of course)
As we are contributing financially to this project we can expect to be closely involved in the design.
5180553 / 2183965410 = 0.2%.
Not sure how close that is, but perhaps tea and biscuits at the Project Management meetings we are invited to.
Diego Garcia and one or two other similar facilities have just saved us another $1bn.
Does this mean the UK will have to replicate some portion of the test program to validate performance of the proposed new UK warhead?
Wonder whether ye olde 20th century method of delivering some proportion of the warheads airfreight, potentially courtesy of an OTS purchase of a squadron/wing of B-21s, may appear to be an increasingly attractive fiscal option to RAF/MoD in the future? 🤔
Probably not. The UK will build its own W93 warheads using materials and methods which were tested way back in actual nuclear explosions. We maintain a sovereign capability to design and build nuclear warheads, but we will need design information on the Mk7 MIRV re-entry vehicle to do so.
Agree w/ your assessment. However, deem it to be unfortunate that RAF forced to w/draw strategic bombing (especially nuclear) capability. Firm advocate of all available measures to complicate the opposition’s targeting task.
That’s brilliant.
Good cost benefit for the UK. Interestingly the dreadnaught will be the demonstrator for the new Mark 7/W93 design. It will have to undergo significant testing on US instrumented naval test ranges including the live fire demo. Hopefully it works.