Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Defense Programs (NA-10) Blue Ribbon Panel Lightning Environments Review

The Office of Defense Programs (NA-10) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in conjunction with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (AFNWC) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) plan to contract with Dr. Kenneth Cummins, Professor at the University of Arizona and sole proprietor for Kenneth Cummins Consulting, by means of other than full and open competition to serve as an independent reviewer on the jointly-sponsored AFNWC/NNSA Lightning Environments Blue Ribbon Panel. The contracting activity is the NNSA HQ Service Acquisition Branch (HSAB) NA-APM-126.  It is important to establish credible lightning environments that a nuclear weapon could encounter over the course of its lifetime. The purpose of the Lightning Environments Blue Ribbon Panel is to provide an independent technical review of both current and recently proposed new environments as well as peer review findings in order to inform decisions about possible changes to requirements for both new and existing weapon systems.

To support the project, Dr. Cummins, will be required to provide work in a number of distinct task areas to include:

1. Establishing familiarity with current lightning environments specifications (military standards) in use and the data sets used to inform them (through documentation review/briefings/Q&A)
2. Developing a full understanding of the proposed environment changes and peer review findings (through documentation review/briefings/Q&A)
3. Using lightning expertise, and working with other panel members, provide a technical review to help determine credible environments and evaluate particular areas-of-concern.
4. Co-Authoring a panel report and provide a mid-term and final outbrief of findings

Awarded contract 89233121CNA000222 to unknown vendor for unknown amount on 2021-09-28.