
Faulty missile tubes that earlier consumed months of schedule margin on the next-generation U.S. nuclear-armed, ballistic missile submarines are not pacing the schedule for the boats anymore, the admiral in charge of the U.S. program said Thursday. “I retain margin on missile tubes,” Read Adm. Scott Pappano, the U.S. Navy’s program executive officer for strategic submarines, said in a webcast meeting hosted by the Washington-based non-government group, Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance. In 2018, BWX Technologies [BWXT] incorrectly welded a dozen…