Stockpile Stewardship and the National Ignition Facility

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's most energetic laser system, is operational at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Since the completion of the construction project in March 2009, NIF has completed nearly 150 target experiments for the National Ignition Campaign (NIC), High Energy Density Stewardship Science (HEDSS) in the areas of radiation transport, material dynamics at high pressure in the solid state, as well as fundamental science and other national security missions. NIF capabilities and infrastructure are in place to support all of its missions with over 50 X-ray, optical and nuclear diagnostic systems and the ability to shoot cryogenic targets and DT layered capsules. NIF is now qualified for use of tritium and other special materials as well as to perform high yield experiments and classified experiments. DT implosions with record indirect-drive neutron yield of 4.5 x 1014 neutrons have been achieved. A series of 43 experiments were successfully executed over a 27-day period, demonstrating the ability to perform precise experiments in new regimes of interest to HEDSS. This talk will provide an update of the progress on the NIF capabilities, NIC accomplishments, as well as HEDSS and fundamental science experimental results and an update of the experimental plans for the coming year.