Good news for space research in massive defense package

A new law authorizing the Department of Defense and the nuclear weapons operations of the Department of Energy for the current fiscal year includes provisions that loosen controls on international scientific cooperation in space and that encourage establishment of US production sources for a key medical radioisotope. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) also orders DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to resume construction of a new plutonium pit fabrication plant at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a project the Obama administration had wanted to delay for at least five years. The law authorizes $70 million in FY 2013 for the project, known as the chemical and metallurgy replacement facility, sets a deadline of 2026 for its completion, and caps its cost at $3.7 billion.

But the final version of the 680-page NDAA signed into law by President Obama on 3 January did not contain House-passed provisions that would have ordered major changes to the NNSA’s oversight of the nuclear weapons laboratories and a major reduction to the NNSA workforce. Those measures, authored by Representative Michael Turner (R-OH), chairman of the Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee, were aimed at reducing the NNSA’s perceived micromanagement of the labs (see Physics Today, May 2012, page 26 ). In their place, the act ordered establishment of a congressional commission to study and report on the relationships among the NNSA, the national laboratories, and their contractors and to recommend fixes if deemed necessary.

Space R&D eased

Space scientists and universities applauded a provision that will remove nonmilitary satellite technology from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the government’s most restrictive export-control regime. Since 1999 all satellite and launch-system hardware, including that used for commercial and research purposes, has been included on the ITAR munitions list, and foreign nationals have been barred from working with or even receiving information about such hardware. US higher education associations have complained that the restrictions hamper US universities’ and scientists’ participation in many space-related research projects, collaborations, and classes (see Physics Today, October 2010, page 23 ).

Following recommendations from a two-year review by the Defense and State departments, the NDAA directs that space hardware not used for military purposes be removed from the munitions list. As a result, such items as communications satellites, low-resolution remote sensing satellites, and other unclassified components are expected to be moved to the Commerce Department’s less restrictive export regime, the Commerce Control List. Although licenses are still required for the export of all or most hardware on the Commerce list, licenses aren’t needed to permit foreign nationals engaged in fundamental research to use those devices.

A significant caveat is that ITAR restrictions on space hardware will still apply to China, North Korea, and nations designated by the US as state sponsors of terrorism. The restrictions are problematic for universities because a large proportion of graduate students in the technical fields are Chinese nationals. Thomas Zurbuchen, professor of space science and aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan, says that in one class he teaches, fully half of the students are foreign nationals and one-third of those are Chinese. “The real worry I have is that the issues related to China will affect some of us,” he says. Otherwise, Zurbuchen welcomes the NDAA change: “It will address a tremendous ambiguity. I taught space systems and [the question was] what can I talk about and what can I not? When everything is so broadly covered under ITAR, it is really difficult.”

Fostering US isotope output

Separately, the NDAA incorporates a new provision to encourage the development of a US production source for molybdenum-99, the precursor to the most widely used medical isotope, the metastable form of technetium-99. Currently, all the ⁹⁹Mo the US consumes comes from foreign sources, and nearly all of it is manufactured with the use of highly enriched uranium. With twin goals of ending all commercial use of HEU and stimulating domestic production of ⁹⁹Mo, the NNSA has established cooperative agreements with four US firms, each developing a different technology for producing ⁹⁹Mo without the use of HEU (see Physics Today, December 2011, page 32 ). Besides specifically authorizing the NNSA effort, the NDAA adds a new inducement to prospective domestic ⁹⁹Mo producers by offering to take back for disposal the uranium waste used in the isotope’s manufacture. That service will not be free but will ensure a disposal route for the nuclear waste.

The authorization act also stipulates that shipments of US HEU to foreign ⁹⁹Mo producers end in 2019, although the cutoff could be extended for another six years if the NNSA determines that the amount of the isotope from suppliers that don’t use HEU is insufficient to meet demand. But Parrish Staples, director of the NNSA’s European and African threat reduction office, says the phaseout of foreign HEU shipments is on track to be completed in three or four years. Another provision in the new law explicitly allows the use of HEU-fueled research reactors, such as the University of Missouri’s high-power research reactor, to produce ⁹⁹Mo until low-enriched uranium fuel is developed for those reactors and as long as their operators are working with DOE to convert to low-enriched uranium. The university currently produces multiple radioisotopes and radiochemicals but not ⁹⁹Mo.