New Mexico News
| LANL Machine Called a Success |
| Posted by () on May 21 2008 at 7:40 PM |
Federal officials on Monday announced the completion of a long-delayed machine at Los Alamos National Laboratory built to X-ray nuclear weapons parts.
Robert Smolen, National Nuclear Security Administration deputy chief, called the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrotest Facility "an incredible scientific and engineering achievement."
That is a stark contrast to the day in 2003 when officials realized the machine, built at a cost of $300 million, did not work.
Monday's announcement marks the successful completion of a $90 million effort to tear the machine apart and rebuild it to fix the problems discovered in 2003.
DARHT, as the machine is known, uses powerful X-ray beams to take pictures of mock nuclear weapons as they are being detonated. The pictures allow weapons designers to study details of the early stages of a weapon's explosion without conducting a full nuclear test.
Monday's announcement marks the formal decision by NNSA to give the project a "completed" stamp of approval.
It is also a major accomplishment for the team responsible for the project's completion, said Mary Hockaday, deputy associate lab director for nuclear weapons physics.
"There were a lot of people who told us we couldn't do it," Hockaday said in a telephone interview Monday.
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