National Ignition Facility Cryogenic Target Systems Interim Management Plan

Abstract

Restricted availability of funding has had an adverse impact, unforeseen at the time of the original decision to projectize the National Ignition Facility (NIF) Cryogenic Target Handling Systems (NCTS) Program, on the planning and initiation of these efforts. The purpose of this document is to provide an interim project management plan describing the organizational structure and management processes currently in place for NCTS. Preparation of a Program Execution Plan (PEP) for NCTS has been initiated, and a current draft is provided as Attachment 1 to this document. The National Ignition Facility is a multi-megajoule laser facility being constructed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in the Department of Energy (DOE). Its primary mission is to support the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) by performing experiments studying weapons physics, including fusion ignition. NIF also supports the missions of weapons effects, inertial fusion energy, and basic science in high-energy-density physics. NIF will be operated by LLNL under contract to the University of California (UC) as a national user facility. NIF is a low-hazard, radiological facility, and its operation will meet all applicable federal, state, and local Environmental Safety & Health (ES&H) requirements. The NCTS Interim Managementmore » Plan provides a summary of primary design criteria and functional requirements, current organizational structure, tracking and reporting procedures, and current planning estimates of project scope, cost, and schedule. The NIF Director controls the NIF Cryogenic Target Systems Interim Management Plan. Overall scope content and execution schedules for the High Energy Density Physics Campaign (SSP Campaign 10) are currently undergoing rebaselining and will be brought into alignment with resources expected to be available throughout the NNSA Future Years National Security Plan (FYNSP). The revised schedule for delivering this system will be decided at the national level, based on experiment campaign requirement dates that will be derived through this process. The current milestone date for achieving indirect-drive ignition on the NIF is December 2010. Maintaining this milestone requires that the cryogenic systems be complete and available for fielding experiments early enough that the planned experimental campaigns leading up to ignition can be carried out. The capability of performing non-ignition cryogenic experiments is currently required by March 2006, when the NIF's first cluster of beams is operational. Plans for cryogenic and non-cryogenic experiments on the NIF are contained in NNSA's Campaign 10 Program Plans for Ignition (MTE 10.1) and High Energy Density Sciences (MTE 10.2). As described in this document, the NCTS Program Manager is responsible for managing NIF Cryogenic Target Systems development, engineering, and deployment. Through the NIF Director, the NCTS Program Manager will put in place an appropriate Program Execution Plan (draft attached) at a later time consistent with the maturing and funding these efforts. The PEP will describe management methods for carrying out these activities.« less