The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has completed all components for the W80-4 nuclear warhead planned for fiscal year (FY) 2026, many of them months ahead of schedule, advancing efforts to achieve the first production unit (FPU) of the W80-4 ahead of its end-of-FY 2027 target. 

The Kansas City National Security Campus has recently completed all W80-4 components planned for fiscal year 2026, and this ensures the program has now an additional schedule margin. As of 2023 documents, delivery of the First Production Unit of the new W80-4 warhead was scheduled for September 2027.

The remaining W80-4 components are on track to enter their production phase in early calendar year 2027. The W80-4 warhead is going to arm the new Long Range Stand-Off Missile (LRSM) for the US Air Force, a stealthy cruise missile meant to penetrate adversaries’ most advanced air defences.

The W80-4 is not an entirely new warhead: it is a modernization and remanufacture project which reuses select components from existing W80-1 warheads from the AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile, which the LRSO is due to replace.

The W80 warhead family also used to include the W80-0 which armed the TLAM-N, the nuclear TOMAHAWK which was withdrawn from US Navy service between 1991 and 1992. By Fiscal Year 2012, all W80-0 were reported to have been dismantled.

W80-2 and 3 are both designations for proposed Life Extensions for the W80-0 and W80-1 respectively, which did not progress. Plans were however made, leading to the W80-4 designation of the current project.

The W80-4 include use of the existing insensitive high explosive design while incorporating of modern components and safety features. It exploits extensive use of non-nuclear component technology already developed and mature, while including joint engineering with the USAF on the warhead-missile interface to mate with the new LRSO.

The Weapon Design and Cost Report for W80-4 was completed back in December 2018. Development and Engineering was initiated in February 2019, with transition to Production Engineering in March 2023. First Production Unit delivery in 2027 is the next big milestone.

The W80-4 project involves the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, supported by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California which provided the physics and engineering designs; and the Pantex Plant in Texas which disassembles legacy stockpile warheads to harvest components for reuse during processing at Y-12. Final assembly of the warheads is of course at the sole assembly facility, the Pantex Plant in Carson County, Texas.

The W80 family is likely to soon gain another member, since ongoing studies for the new Submarine Launched Cruise Missile – Nuclear are specifically looking at adopting a “W80 family” warhead. The SLCM-N was launched by the first Trump Administration; then earmarked for cancellation during the Biden years, only be again pushed forward by the second Trump administration.

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