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. Hugh Christian, Professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, 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.

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. Christian, 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.

Dr. Christian has a unique capability because he is a nationally recognized expert in the field of lightning physics with many years of experience. The physics of lightning is highly complex and not completely understood. The candidate pool of experienced subject matter experts is limited. Additional restrictions on the candidate pool include the need to be available on the necessary near-term timeframe and requiring no conflicts of interest due to previous or ongoing collaborations in an overlapping topical area with either the USAF or NNSA. This makes the candidate pool limited. Dr. Christian was among the top of a very short list of experts that met all the requirements needed for this panel.