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Kratos And RAFAEL Partner To Join Growing Field Of Rocket Motor Makers

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions [KTOS] and Israel’s RAFAEL Defense Systems

on Wednesday said they have formed a joint venture to become a U.S.-based merchant supplier of solid rocket motors (SRMs), joining a crowding field of legacy and startups vying to meet Defense Department demand that exceeds current supply.

Prometheus Energetics, an “approximate 50-50” partnership, will be based on a 500-acre site near a Navy and Army facility in Crane, Ind. The companies are contributing a combined $175 million to establish Prometheus, including property, equipment, and personnel for the “state-of-the-art energetics manufacturing campus and facilities.”

Production of SRMs is expected to begin in 2027. The companies said RAFAEL is transferring technology that must be certified for operations. RAFAEL in Israel makes SRMs and warheads, including for that country’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

L3Harris Technologies [LHX] and Northrop Grumman [NOC] are the two primary U.S. suppliers of SRMs to the Defense Department. Nammo, which is based in Norway and has operations in the U.S., also supplies SRMs to U.S. prime contractors.

In addition to the legacy providers, startups Anduril Industries, Firehawk Aerospace, Ursa Major, and X-Bow Systems are developing SRMs for different applications. And General Dynamics [GD], in partnership with support from Lockheed Martin [LMT] and the DoD, is also entering the SRM fray.

The three-year-old Russo-Ukraine War, which quickly became an attrition slugfest, exposed weaknesses in U.S. magazine depth for missiles and munitions, prompting demand that exceed the supply of rocket motors to power the various kinetic projectiles.

Kratos designed the 32.5-inch stage one and two SRMs that were built by L3Harris for the Zeus rocket that was tested in a suborbital flight last fall (Defense Daily, Nov. 7, 2024).

“Like other major Kratos investments such as Oriole, Zeus, and Erinyes, Prometheus responds to a critical need to strengthen the U.S industrial base and will also provide 10s of thousands of SRMs and casted warheads supporting both America’s most reliable partner in the Middle East and United States national security-related demand from a true SRM and energetics merchant supplier,” Eric DeMarco, president and CEO of Kratos, said in a statement.

House Narrowly Passes Budget Blueprint With $100 Billion For Defense

The House on Tuesday evening narrowly passed a budget resolution that sets a blueprint for passing Trump administration priorities via the reconciliation process, to include spending $100 billion on defense over four years.

The 217-215 vote along party lines to pass the measure followed uncertainty in the House over Republican holdouts who sought deeper spending cuts, to include GOP leadership pulling the measure and then immediately putting it back on the floor when the necessary votes had been secured.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) gives his remarks in honor of WWII Ghost Army veterans, formerly assigned to the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Service Company, during a special ceremony at Emancipation Hall, U.S. Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, D.C., March 21, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by Henry Villarama)

“Today, House Republicans moved Congress closer to delivering on President Trump’s full America First agenda — not just parts of it,” House GOP leadership wrote in a joint statement following passage. “This momentum will grow as we work with our committee chairs and Senate Republicans to determine the best policies within their respective jurisdictions to meet budgetary targets. We have full confidence in their ability to chart the best path forward.”

Ultimately, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the sole Republican to vote against the budget resolution, citing concerns that the measure would add to the deficit.

The Senate passed its own budget resolution along party lines on Feb. 21, which supports a two-step approach to reconciliation that would start with a defense-border security-energy bill, to include $150 billion defense, before taking on a second measure focused on tax and spending cuts (Defense Daily, Feb. 21).

President Trump last week endorsed the House’s proposal which takes a one-bill, all-encompassing approach that supports $300 billion in total new spending related to defense and border security priorities and includes a $4 trillion debt limit increase and an extension of the 2017 tax cuts instituted by the first Trump term (Defense Daily, Feb. 19).

The reconciliation process would allow the Senate, when the bill gets there, to pass billions of dollars in budget-related Trump administration priorities without requiring the 60-vote threshold needed to break the filibuster, while the House will require a near-unified GOP caucus to support the measure facing likely unanimous Democratic opposition.

The House and Senate’s competing budget resolutions both don’t provide a specific breakdown of how the additional funds should be spent over the four years covered by the pending reconciliation bill, tasking committees to determine how the spending would be authorized.

Lockheed Martin Reveals New Scalable Counter-Drone System

Lockheed Martin [LMT] on Wednesday said it recently conducted a field test for a new Scalable Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) Solution as part of a set of upcoming events.

The company said this is a modular, open-architecture solution uses “combat-proven command and control with artificial intelligence-enabled detect and track software, low-cost sensors” and an increasing set of effectors.

This vaguely named system was designed to allow quick deployment and “seamless integration with other systems,” Lockheed Martin said.

It added the modular open systems approach allows it to be quickly integrated with the best options of sensors, effectors and command and control enhancements so it can provide “flexibility and adaptability for dynamic threat evolutions.”

The company also said it is designed “to simplify collaboration with partners” and uses AI-driven software to improve operator efficiency against individual UAS and swarm raid threats.

“Integrating diverse sensors through a user-optimized command and control (C2) system helps simplify threat identification, and we have the complementary technology offerings to convert collected data into actionable information,” Tyler Griffin, C-UAS director at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.

“Our open architecture approach offers an agile, layered defense solution that accelerates outcomes relative to this dynamic threat. This foundational demo highlights how we can deliver the mission today and sets the stage for what Lockheed Martin and our partners will deliver in weeks and months ahead,” he continued.

The company did not disclose when and where the recent field event occurred, but characterized it as the first in a series of “innovative showcases” with the scalable, layered C-UAS defense system.

Lockheed Martin said in the initial event the company and its undisclosed partners successfully showcase the system’s ability to detect, track and perform mitigation techniques against a mix of small UAVs, including individual and swarm scenarios.

This could be in line with an unnamed system Lt. Gen. Eric Austin described last month for dismounted Marines. At the time, the commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and deputy commandant for combat development and integration said newly-granted acquisition authorities through a cross-functional team and fusion cell helped them field a new ground-based C-UAS defense capability to be deployed this year (Defense Daily, Jan. 31).

Austin said his man-portable system has several subsets focused on a suite of C-UAS capabilities and can leverage multiple detection and defeat mechanisms.

Sea-Based Launch Platform Company Seagate Space Exits Stealth

Seagate Space Corp. announced its formation yesterday with a goal to provide offshore launch platforms to expand access to space.

The Florida-based company said it is targeting early 2026 for demonstration launches and is in discussions with potential launch partners.

The offshore launch platforms offer lower costs, modular, and mobile solutions to meet increasing launch demand amid limited onshore facilities, the company said.

Seagate’s co-founders are Sean Fortener, former head of innovation at Crowley Maritime

, and Michael Anderson, the company’s CEO and a previous leader with Deloitte’s Future of Mobility consulting practice.

“Seagate Space was founded on a vision to bring launch facilities into the 21st Century, Fortener, chief revenue and operations officer, said in a statement. “The modern space industry has evolved dramatically. Today’s focus is on frequent, responsive, efficient access to space. Our systems will be built to enable this new breed of launch vehicles.”

The company’s Gateway S system is designed for the small launch vehicle market, in particular for liquid fueled rockets currently in commercial use, Fortener told Defense Daily in an email reply to questions.

The Spaceport Company, another startup, is also developing sea-based, mobile launch platforms (Defense Daily, May 28, 2024). The company has already demonstrated multiple rocket launches from a modified ship.

Army Aims To Begin Fielding First Autonomous Logistics Trucks In FY ‘27

The Army is aiming to begin fielding its first autonomous heavy logistics trucks in fiscal year 2027, pending budget plans, officials detailed this week.

Kyle Bruner, the Army’s project manager for projection, confirmed that self-driving technology startup Forterra and autonomous systems firm

Carnegie Robotics were chosen this past fall to continue working on the Autonomous Transport Vehicle System (ATV-S) program and with the service planning to downselect to one vendor around the third quarter of FY ‘26.

Carnegie Robotics’ ATV-S prototype (Carnegie Robotics)

“This assumes successful testing and continued support in the Army’s budget,” Bruner said in a statement to Defense Daily.

The ATV-S program is intended to outfit potentially hundreds of the Army’s Palletized Load System heavy trucks, built by Oshkosh Defense [OSK], with software and hardware to enable autonomous operations.

“The integration of autonomous systems for resupply, maintenance and energy distribution will be a gamechanger,” Maj. Gen. Michelle Donahue, head of the Army’s Combined Arms Support Command, said in remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference on Tuesday.“We will capitalize on ATV-S’ autonomous replenishment of critical commodities to extend the division commanders’ operational reach and his or her endurance.”

Donahue said the current continuing resolution, which forces the Army to operate under FY ‘24 spending levels until Congress passes full FY ‘25 appropriations, is impacting the ability to move ahead on ATV-S, which could lead to the planned fielding timeline extending from 18 months out to 24 months.

In December 2023, the Army first announced it had awarded three Other Transaction Authority Agreements totaling $14.8 million to Forterra, Carnegie Robotics and software firm Neya Systems to work on the first phase of ATV-S to work on developing and demonstrating four prototypes.

“The desired capability of ATV-S is to provide uncrewed operation of tactical wheeled vehicles in support of logistics operations. ATV-S mission sets will include support convoy operations, waypoint navigation, and teleoperations. These mission sets will reduce soldier exposure to hostile threats while increasing logistics throughput,” the Army said in a statement at the time.

The Army then decided in late October 2024 to move forward with Forterra and Carnegie Robotics on Phase 2 of ATV-S, covering two more prototypes and Army testing and an operational demonstration, while Bruner told Defense Daily that the value of those awards “were not publicly released.”

Bruner, in remarks at the NDIA TWV conference, said Phase 2 of the program includes a “much more laid out test plan to hit all aspects of safety, suitability and sustainability.”

“We are hampered a little bit under the continuing resolution, but we expect to get over that hump here and then continue the testing later this year,” Bruner said.

Following Phase 2, the Army is intending to select one vendor for Phase 3 in FY ‘26 to build 35 more prototypes, for a total of 41 vehicles to support a “first unit issued” milestone.

The ATV-S program is intended to integrate with the PLS truck’s “digital backbone” to provide “manned and unmanned teaming capability for convoy operations” utilizing sensors, controllers and autonomy software, according to a slide Bruner presented.

“ATV-S-equipped Palletized Load System [trucks] will allow a single soldier to lead a convoy of four wirelessly linked unmanned PLS [trucks] reducing soldier exposure to hostile threats while increasing transportation throughput,” the slide stated.

Donahue said on Tuesday that ATV-S is expected to increase the Army’s Composite Truck Companies sustainment throughput by 50 percent while also having the ability to autonomously navigate “varied and unpredictable routes while maintaining continuous movement.”

“We’re going to have to think through what it means to operate autonomous trucks on U.S. highways. We’re going to have to think about what this means for commanders to take risk in knowing that there’s always a human in the loop for that system somewhere in that convoy. But this is a critical capability,” Donahue said. “This will be the most transformation that the sustainment community makes really since we introduced trucks back in like 1915.”

Bruner added that, while ATV-S will begin by enabling tele-operations, the Army has “a pathway to full autonomy” that it will work on over the next several years.

The Army’s plan is to extend ATV-S beyond its PLS fleet to include the future Common Tactical Truck (CTT) platforms, Bruner noted.

“I think we’re going to see, as we have new truck production coming in the next few years, [those] will come off the line autonomy-ready. In other words, [they] will have that digital backbone on it and those safety systems that ATV-S relies upon,” Bruner said.

The Army in January 2023 selected Oshkosh Defense, Mack Defense, ND Defense and a team of American Rheinmetall and GM Defense [GM] for its CTT prototyping program to inform its search for replacing its Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles fleet (Defense Daily, Jan. 30 2023).

L3Harris, Shield Team On Integrating EW Management System With AI Pilot

L3Harris Technologies [LHX] and Shield AI are collaborating on a demonstration of an electronic warfare battle management system integrated into unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) piloted by artificial intelligence for operations in contested environments, the companies said on Wednesday.

The companies said they will conduct a demonstration with “AI-enabled unmanned systems that will sense, adapt and act while simultaneously executing physical and electromagnetic movements.”

The teaming includes L3Harris’s software-defined Distributed Spectrum Collaboration and Operations (DiSCO) ecosystem that can detect, collect, and analyze known and unknown threat signals “in minutes,” and leverages cloud technology and AI and machine learning to quickly adapt to radio frequency threats. The company is developing the open architecture DiSCO with cybersecurity firm EverFox and “leading cloud providers” as an electromagnetic spectrum operations architecture to enable “real-time data sharing, analysis, battle management, and command and control to enable spectrum dominance and closure of long-range kill chains,” it says on its website.

The DiSCO technology is being developed for enterprise applications. In addition to the UAS integration with Shield AI, DiSCO can be applied to multiple platforms, helps EW and radar systems survive on the battlefield, and allows for strategic management of EW operations.

Shield AI is providing its Hivemind software, which provides autonomous flight capabilities for UAS.

“Adversaries’ kill webs are complex, restrict access and put asset at risk,” Christian Gutierrez, vice president of Hivemind Solutions at Shield AI, said in a statement. “Countering them requires shifting to distributed, autonomous kill webs that sense, decide, and act in real-time. Integrated Hivemind autonomy with L3Harris’ EW capabilities enables dynamic maneuverability in contested environments.”

USAF Force Structure to Achieve Air Superiority ‘In Multiple Ways’

The Department of the Air Force’s future force structure will not be one that relies wholly on standoff and will achieve air superiority “in multiple ways,” a service official said on Wednesday.

“What we have found is that if you go to an all long-range force, it doesn’t win,” U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph “Solo” Kunkel, the service’s director for force design, integration, and wargaming, said at the Hudson Institute. “You’ve got to be forward in order to sustain the tempo required to bring the adversary to its knees. An all long-range force sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? You sit in Topeka, Kansas. You press a red button. The war gets fought. Nobody gets hurt. It’s all done at long-range. It doesn’t win because it just can’t sustain the tempo of the fight.”

“In the combined arms approach we’re taking, you have long range capabilities, and they’re important, and when I say, ‘It doesn’t win,’ it doesn’t win by itself,” he said. “Long-range fires are extremely important, absolutely game-changing. They’re gonna be able to deliver a massive punch to the adversary, but they’re probably not gonna do it at the tempo required to keep the adversary on its knees all the time. You need something else. You need something inside that can generate tempo and mass…We’ve got to generate tempo and mass–it’s probably not gonna be as big, and then we’ve also got to have long-range stuff that isn’t at the right tempo.”

The Air Force’s classified future force design–“One”–has come under criticism for “surrendering” air superiority and for shifting the service to a mostly or wholly standoff force, Timothy Walton, a senior fellow at Hudson, said during his discussion with Kunkel at the Wednesday forum. The service over the last several months, however, has shifted from the standoff thinking, which would play into China’s information denial strategy, one source said.

“Air superiority allows the joint force freedom of maneuver,” Kunkel said. “Our force design doesn’t walk away from air superiority. It strengthens air superiority, but what you’ll see is, you’ll see us achieving air superiority in different ways to the days when air superiority can only be achieved with an F-22 and AMRAAM…Where we are going in our force design is we’re getting stronger. We’re achieving air superiority, not in one way, but in multiple ways.”

Lockheed Martin [LMT] is the contractor for the F-22 Raptor fighter, while RTX [RTX] builds the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).

Top Trump adviser Elon Musk may push DoD to accelerate the development and fielding of autonomous drones, such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft, and curtail the buy of manned fighters, such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 (Defense Daily, Dec. 19, 2024).

DOGE Missing Mark And Opportunity, HASC Ranking Member Says

Random firings combined with no clear direction from the Trump administration’s fledgling government efficiency effort so far are not unlocking new and better ways of doing business at the Defense Department, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) said on Wednesday.

Firings of more than 5,400 relatively new DoD employees that began this week do not address workforce performance issues and miss the mark on determining the talent needs of the department, Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.) said during a committee hearing examining the defense industrial base.

“At the moment, we’re just saying that we’re going to fire the people who have been there for less than two years,” Smith said in his opening statement. “I mean that’s not quality control. That can enter chaos into the process in a very unhelpful way.”Smith also said that “loyalty” to President Trump is more important than “ability” as a reason for being fired, alluding to last week’s dismissal of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Navy’s top officer, and the number two officer of the Air Force.

The end result is the lesson will be learned at DoD that being good at the job is unimportant, rather “I just have to suck up to the boss” is what counts, he said. This will not result in DoD being “more efficient or more effective,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is overseen by Elon Musk, is forcing government agencies to fire relatively new federal workers, and others that have switched jobs recently within the government, as one way to cut costs in the name efficiency, although the effort is being carried out with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel.

Smith asked Eric Fanning, the CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, how DoD can speed up contracting, pointing to a comment Fanning made earlier in the hearing that on average it takes nearly 300 days to award prime contracts worth more than $100 million. This is a “strong disincentive” for commercial companies to work with DoD, Fanning said in his opening comments.

In response to Smith’s question, Fanning replied that the government needs to start accepting more risk in its processes and that incentives need to be offered for federal employees to implement existing acquisition reform authorities.

“We incentivize them to find the problems, not necessarily get us past the problems,” Fanning said. Smith agreed that incentives should be adjusted, saying that how DOGE is going about its business is “maddening.” Instead of creating a “different culture” or changing how requirements are developed, and enabling the workforce “so they can do their job,” the DOGE is randomly firing people, he said.

“It’s a huge missed opportunity to actually make the workforce at the Pentagon better, more efficient,” Smith said.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) said that the firings of probationary employees have been “haphazard” and suggested that the DOGE—which is also targeting federal diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and programs—is targeting women in the government workforce. This is “devaluing” 51 percent of the nation’s workforce, she said.

Fanning and the heads of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) and Shipbuilders Council of America said the industries they represent must draw talent from across the U.S. population.

“You’ve got to make sure you’re recruiting from everywhere so you can bring the best and the brightest,” David Norquist, CEO of NDIA, told Houlahan.

Is There a Need for New ICBM Siloes for Sentinel?

Will the U.S. Air Force need to build new ICBM “launch facilities”–siloes–to accommodate the LGM-35A Sentinel?

“Looks to me like they’re going to have to,” says Sen. Angus King (I-Me.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces panel.

The provision of multiple warheads, countermeasures, and increased range to hit China means the design of the Northrop Grumman [NOC] Sentinel is significantly larger than that of the current Boeing [BA] Minuteman III.

The Air Force fielded 450 Minuteman siloes between 1962 and 1967, of which 50 are decommissioned but may be brought back for future testing. Experts have said that placing Sentinel in Minuteman siloes may lead to several degrees of tilt in such siloes.

The first operational Minuteman fielded on Oct. 27, 1962 at Malmstrom AFB, Mont., during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) has been planning to “renovate all 450 existing launch facilities in the missile fields to like-new condition”–siloes under the three missile wings at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo., Minot AFB, N.D., and Malmstrom.

“We’re looking at that right now,” Air Force Gen. Thomas Bussiere, the head of AFGSC, told Defense Daily affiliate publication Exchange Monitor on Tuesday when asked whether the Air Force needed new siloes for Sentinel rather than modernizing and reusing the Minuteman siloes. “The acquisition professionals and my operators are part of the process post Nunn-McCurdy looking at how we do that. It hasn’t been decided by the department yet, but I’m optimistic that we’ll come up with some good ideas.”

On Jan. 18 last year, the Air Force said that it notified Congress that Sentinel had breached Nunn-McCurdy guidelines, primarily due to construction design changes, and then DoD acquisition chief William LaPlante ordered a root-cause analysis. The latter led last summer to the DoD decision to continue the program, due to its stated importance to strategic deterrence, but also to the rescinding of the Sentinel Milestone B engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) go ahead from 2020 (Defense Daily, July 8, 2024).

Last summer, the Air Force pegged Sentinel cost at $140.9 billion, 81 percent higher than the September, 2020 estimate when the program was approved for EMD–a rise that DoD said has less to do with the missile than the command-and-control segment, including siloes, launch centers, “and the process, duration, staffing, and facilities to execute the conversion from Minuteman III to Sentinel.”

Initial operational capability (IOC) for Sentinel now looks to be years past the Air Force’s initial goal of May 2029 for Sentinel IOC.

A spokesman for Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor, said, “As a nationwide industry team, we are performing and meeting our commitments under the EMD contract, maturing the design and reducing risk as we prepare for production and deployment of this essential, national security capability. At this time, we defer questions to the Air Force Public Affairs Office.”

In contrast to the massive civil works projects that is to surround Sentinel–a ground infrastructure effort not undertaken for more than 60 years, experts said that the Sentinel missile has met requirements laid out by the Air Force.

LaPlante said last summer that in “hindsight,” Sentinel should not have been approved to start EMD. He also said the “knowledge” around the ground segment in 2020 “was insufficient in hindsight to have a high-quality cost estimate.” That knowledge is more mature now, he said at the time.

Bussiere said on Tuesday that a “re-establishing” of Milestone B is to occur in the next 18 months.

DoD said last summer that the ongoing Sentinel restructuring will address “root causes” of the breach, create a management structure to “control” future costs, and scale down/simplify missile siloes to speed the transition from Minuteman III to Sentinel.

Fiber optic, high-bandwidth cables to replace the Minuteman III’s underground network of the copper wired Hardened Intersite Cable System (HICS) may allow a halving of the number of ICBM Launch Control Centers from the 45 now under the three ICBM bases.

Air Force plans have called for a Sentinel launch center for at least 24 of the missile alert facilities and for 3,100 miles of new utility corridor for Sentinel.

The civil works for Sentinel may also include hardening siloes to account for improved accuracy of Russian and Chinese nuclear missiles.

On Tuesday, Sen. King said that he is worried that the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency “may not understand the strategic importance of this project [Sentinel] and just say, ‘Oh. Here’s a big pot of money.'”

Trump also recently called for

reductions in U.S., Russian, and Chinese nuclear arsenals and said that the U.S. has “no need” to build new nuclear weapons, yet the right wing Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which may serve as a blueprint for Trump administration policies, called for possible fielding of more than the 634 Sentinel missiles planned and an acceleration of Sentinel “development and production…to reduce the risk inherent in an aging Minuteman III force in light of China’s nuclear modernization breakout” (Defense Daily, Feb. 14).

A “Memo to Trump” last month from a researcher at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advised a reduction in Minuteman IIIs to 300, a cancellation of Sentinel and a service life extension for the Minuteman III.

“Reviews by military officials and experts support a reduction in the number of deployed ICBMs,” the memo said. “The Sentinel program’s cost and schedule challenges have become untenable and unacceptable for U.S. taxpayers, particularly for a program that is not necessary for national security. We must prioritize government efficiency by slashing wasteful spending, streamlining modernization programs, and not allowing the legislative branch alone to dictate the U.S. nuclear posture.”

Sarah Salem contributed to this report from Washington.

Fleischmann Cites ‘Workforce Shortage’ in NNSA, but Oak Ridge Unaffected By Firings

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), whose district abuts Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said Tuesday the nuclear enterprise was facing a “workforce shortage.”

Fleischmann, who chairs a House Appropriations subcommittee on Energy & Water, also told sister publication The Exchange Monitor Tuesday recent layoffs at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee were reversed quickly enough to avoid impact to operations at the Department of Energy facility.

“What do we face? A workforce shortage,” Fleischmann said in his remarks at a panel on Capitol Hill hosted by a congressional nuclear security working group, Fleischmann and Rep. Bill Foster’s (D-Ill.) and the Washington forum Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance. “We had all of these people from the Cold War, basically, who had an expertise in how to design and manufacture nuclear weapons.”

Fleischmann added, “how do you keep that great expertise going? So we need to rebuild that workforce.”

Workforce concerns, especially recruiting new, younger talent to replace scores of retirement-eligible employees across the weapons complex, has been a big issue for DoE in recent years.

This year, however, Fleischmann’s comments follow President Trump’s recent attempt to fire one-sixth of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) through the Department of Government Efficiency. Acting NNSA Director Teresa Robbins issued a memo rescinding the firing of all but 28 employees “effective immediately,” according to the memo obtained by the Monitor.

When asked by the Monitor in the halls of the Capitol whether the “workforce shortage” applied to Oak Ridge or Y-12, Fleischmann said the mass firings “fortunately did not, in any way” because “they rescinded that so quickly, so it was really like an interruption” with “virtually no impact to our reservation.”

Fleischmann added that any DoE employees who did lose their position, “the way it was explained to me was that it was extremely, extremely minimal.”