Nanos tours Nevada Test Site | The Newsbulletin

Laboratory Director G. Peter Nanos, far right, tours the U1a Complex with Laboratory Nevada Test Site operations employees and Bechtel-Nevada personnel during a recent visit. Nanos also met with Laboratory Nevada Test Site operations employees and Bechtel-Nevada personnel while at Nevada. Photo courtesy of Bechtel-Nevada

Nanos tours Nevada Test Site

Laboratory Director G. Peter Nanos recently had a first-hand look at Laboratory activities at the Nevada Test Site. And while he was there, Nanos presented 2002 Distinguished Performance awards to members of the Watusi Experiment Team for their exemplary work.

Nanos was in Nevada for briefings and to tour facilities. The Watusi experiment involved a 38,000-pound explosive-shot (TNT) equivalent that successfully tested new sensor technology, exercised current sensor technology, and provided data that will lead to refined intelligence about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to the advent of an early warning system for seismic disasters. There are about 35 members on the Watusi Experiment team. More information on the Watusi Experiment team's award can be found in the Sept. 29 issue of the Los Alamos NewsLetter.(Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

While at the test site, Nanos met with Kathy Carlson, manager of the Nevada Site operations; Jay Norman, deputy manager for test and operations; and Fred Tarantino, president and general manager of Bechtel, Nev. in Las Vegas. While at the test site, Nanos stayed in the Laboratory dorms in Mercury, which is base camp for the Nevada Test Site, some 60 miles north of Las Vegas. Nanos toured the test site and heard various briefings presented at specific sites on the NTS, said Raffi Papazian of the Dynamic Experimentation (DX) Division, project and test group director for the Lab's Nevada activities.

Part of the three-day visit for Nanos included a tour of Icecap, the last underground nuclear-event site that was in process before the 1992 nuclear testing moratorium. Nanos also visited the Lab-managed U1a Complex, the shaft complex where all subcritical experiments conducted by Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore labs have been implemented. While at the U1a Complex, Papazian said Nanos witnessed preparations for an the Lab's Armando subcritical experiment dated for April 2004. The Lab is conducting the experiment with Sandia National Laboratories, the Naval Research Laboratory, Bechtel-Nevada and PSI-Titan.

Nanos viewed the relocated Atlas Pulse Power Machine; it was moved to the test site from the Laboratory in October 2002. The relocation process is scheduled to be completed next April. Nanos also was briefed on relocation close-out activities and plans to begin the experimental program, which consists of fundamental and applied material studies in constitutive properties of surrogate materials and hydrodynamics, said Bob Reinovsky of the Physics (P) Division, program manger for pulsed-power hydrodynamics.

Nanos also saw the the Unicorn subcritical experiment down-hole site where the Laboratory will conduct a subcritical experiment in a manner similar to an underground nuclear test to exercise operation readiness. The subcritical experiment is scheduled for the 2005 fiscal year, said Papazian.

Nanos also toured Livermore-managed Device Assembly Facility and the Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research, or JASPER, light, two-stage gas gun facility.

In addition, Nanos held a meeting with Laboratory employees as well as Bechtel Nevada support staff working at the test site, Papazian added.