By Calvin Biesecker
The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) is hoping that development of the next-generation of Radiation Portal Monitors (RPMs) will be ready in time for a certification decision in October by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a decision that would lead to production of the Advanced Spectroscopic Portals (ASP), the acting chief of the agency said yesterday.
The “notional” date for the certification decision is October, but DNDO is planning on a decision sometime this fall, Charles Gallaway, acting head of DNDO, told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism. Gallaway’s remarks are in line with testimony he gave a House Appropriations panel in April, although at that time he didn’t provide a specific date for certification (Defense Daily, April 9).
Being ready for an October certification decision of ASP means restarting field validation testing early next month and then completing it with a successful result, Gallaway said. That testing on one of the two companies’ systems that are still part of the program was halted earlier this year after the data that was being generated wasn’t what DNDO was looking for. In his April testimony, Gallaway said that DNDO was hoping to restart the field validation testing in another month.
The two companies in the ASP program are Raytheon [RTN] and Thermo Fisher Scientific [TMO]. DNDO won’t say which system is in field validation testing. The other company’s system is still in integration testing at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Integration testing occurs before field validation testing.
Congress requires that the ASP systems be certified by the Homeland Security Secretary provide a significant increase in performance over current RPMs. The rub, though, is that the ASPs are expected to have almost three times as much as the current technology.
Gallaway said that DNDO is focused on trying to get ASPs certified as secondary screening devices, although it is keeping the option open to have the systems also certified as primary screening tools.
By the end of this year, DNDO and its primary customer, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), expect to have RPMs deployed at all the nation’s land and sea ports of entry. The problem with the RPMs is that they cannot distinguish potentially threatening radiological materials from normally occurring radiation, which leads to false alarms that require CBP officers to take time and resolve.
The Department of Homeland Security’s FY ’10 budget request contains no funding to purchase either ASPs or current generation RPMs. Instead, Gallaway said unspent prior year appropriations will be used to acquire a combination of ASPs and RPMs if Napolitano certifies the ASP system this fall. If she doesn’t, the unspent monies will only go toward purchasing additional RPMs, he said.