RD: Nuclear Technologies and Capabilities Development

- Provide actionable information on radiological and nuclear threats across the full range of future contested operating environments; develop foundational techniques to improve radiation mapping capabilities to increase stand-off and reduce the amount of time DoW forces need to spend in radioactive environments; improve sensor electronics to survive harsh maritime, arctic, and highly radioactive environments. - Develop foundational nuclear weapons effects capabilities to enable DoW, National Nuclear Security Administration and United Kingdom (U.K.) to predict nuclear weapons effects to support strategic contingency planning, including collateral damage estimation. - Expand authoritative DoW data availability on stockpile, foreign, and historical nuclear weapons outputs through Electronic Nuclear Weapons Outputs to meet Nuclear Command, Control and Communications and DoD Instruction 3150.09 CBRN survivability needs. - Develop innovative cutting edge electromagnetic pulse hardening and verification technologies to include device hardness characterization and testing, hardware qualifications, mission critical equipment analysis, and unhardened infrastructure testing. - Deliver unhardened electromagnetic pulse effects tool, Electromagnetic Reliability and Effects Prediction 9.0, with relevant test data from U.S.-U.K. Joint electromagnetic pulse test campaigns and battlefield electromagnetic pulse testing with Army assets for technical reachback, exercise support, and data visualization. - Provide strategic material certification support for materials and sub-system response in Direct Laser Impulse testing; initiate upgrade of National Ignition Facility Direct Laser Impulse optics and 3D target diagnostics; release X-ray Transport and Radiation Response Analysis toolkit with porous and gas gun materials data. - Improve Nuclear, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and high Explosive Analysis Toolset platform with second- and third-order effects models such as damage to telecommunications networks, electric grid, and population movement from nuclear events. - Transition Mission Impacts of Nuclear Events Software and provide nuclear subject matter expertise support for adjudication of nuclear play in four Service, four Combatant Command, two Joint Staff, two U.S. Forces Korea, and four Five Eyes /NATO wargames and exercises. -Complete impact analysis of proliferated Mid-Earth Orbit and Geostationary Earth Orbit satellites nuclear survivability on conventional nuclear integration operations. -Complete scintillation study in support of nuclear survivability analysis request for Army and combatant commands' (U.S. Space Command, U.S. Strategic Command, and U.S. European Command) Operational Planning. - Complete persistent nuclear effects survivability study in support of Space Development Agency and U.S. Space Force requests. - Conduct applied research into directed energy weapons environment characterization to guide future investments into detection and sensing capabilities to support development of environment and protection military standards.

- Implement Mission Impacts of Nuclear Events Software for adjudication of nuclear play in four Service, four Combatant Command, two Joint Staff, four DTRA, two US Forces Korea, and four Five Eyes/North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) wargames and exercises. - Complete prototype for next-generation radionuclide particulate collection and analysis system for the International Monitoring System for greater awareness of nuclear testing activities in denied areas. - Deliver improved nuclear weapons environment models that improve vulnerability assessments, reduce uncertainty of fratricide and thermal effects on military systems, and reduce uncertainty from nuclear ground shock. - Deliver improved structure damage models from nuclear air blast insults. - Deliver improved lower-altitude nuclear disturbed environment tools and additional electromagnetic pulse models to contribute to Nuclear Command, Control and Communications modernization efforts, United States Air Force Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, and United States Navy Strategic Systems Programs modernization. - Deliver Electromagnetic Reliability and Effects Prediction toolsets with relevant test data for technical reachback, exercise support, and data visualization of unhardened electromagnetic pulse effects to support nuclear verification and survivability. - Complete Phase 2 of the Comprehensive Endo-/Exo-Atmospheric Nuclear Environment Standard Nuclear Survivability Military Standards revision in support of acquisition programs survivability certification and compliance efforts. - Support Nuclear Weapons Effects survivability testing at the National Ignition Facility; execute experiments for the optimization of X-ray, neutron, and combined environment sources for strategic testing at the National Ignition Facility; and support 41 weeks of strategic user testing and 14 weeks of development testing at the West Coast Facility. - Demonstrate operating capability of Pithon II X-ray Simulator and demonstrate mixed gas and multishell nozzle cold x-ray generation platforms on Quad Eagle. - Transition prototype sensors to replace Geiger tubes for high-dose rate applications to reduce the size, weight, power, and increase the actionable information available to end-users during Conventional Nuclear Integration warfighting. - Develop a prototype Cadmium Zinc Telluride-based multi-function diagnostics tool and perform early operational assessments with end-users to reduce the size, weight, and power, while increasing performance of radiation sensors. - Develop novel nuclear search algorithms, including those that use novel machine learning approaches to improve threat identification software. - Integrate new capabilities into the Comprehensive Nuclear Effects Model to improve the model’s underground facility response to nuclear strike, model fire ignition and spread from nuclear strike. - Integrate nuclear incident analytic outputs with command and control and geospatial systems in a chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) warning and reporting networks testbed to provide enhanced situational awareness in support of Conventional Nuclear Integration. Analytics to include yield, height of burst, near-real time hazard prediction and decision support outputs. - Improve Over the Horizon Arms Control capability, replacing Arms Control Enterprise System with a modern application hosted on the Nuclear, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and high Explosive Analysis Toolset platform in support of arms control monitoring modernization. - Expand and advance Optical Character Recognition and multimedia (video) Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning methods to increase discoverability of the Defense Threat Reduction Information Analysis Center multimedia collection to support research in the DoD nuclear weapons community.