The National Nuclear Security Administration has allowed Pantex Plant’s High Explosives Pressing Facility to proceed with full-scale operations after a series of readiness assessments. The Texas-based facility would replace the nuclear weapons plant’s aging machining and pressing equipment, and consolidate operations to lessen the motion of explosives across the plant, the Department of Energy said Thursday.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages the 45-square-foot pressing facility that underwent construction from 2011 through 2017. Pantex Plant functions to assemble, dismantle and maintain nuclear weapons in support of NNSA’s mission to sustain the country’s nuclear stockpile.
“NNSA is modernizing the nuclear security enterprise to face 21st century threats,†said Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, undersecretary for nuclear security and NNSA administrator.
