nuclear-news

$77 billion for U.S. Strategic Command for its NC3 – part of $494 billion nuclear weapons update

STRATCOM to design blueprint for nuclear command, control and communications, Space News, by Sandra Erwin — March 29, 2019   U.S. Strategic Command was handed the responsibility last fall to solve one of the Defense Department’s most sensitive and complex technology problems: the modernization of the nation’s nuclear command, control and communications system, known as NC3. This job previously belonged to the Air Force Global Strike Command, but following the completion of the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review last May, the Defense Department decided to give it to STRATCOM, the combatant command that oversees the nation’s nuclear forces.

The NC3 system includes terrestrial and space-based sensors that monitor the globe for threats, and a communications architecture that connects the nation’s decision makers to nuclear forces under any conditions. It is a classified system designed in the 1960s and 1970s during the height of the Cold War and is projected to stay in service for years to come. The technology is aging, however, and needs to be modernized so it can connect to the next generation of nuclear platforms the Pentagon is developing and expects to start deploying in the mid to late 2020s: the B-21 stealth bomber, the Columbia-class strategic ballistic missile submarine and the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles.

March 30, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war