Sandia’s Albuquerque facility, which lies within the Kirtland Air Force Base in the southeast part of New Mexico’s largest city, sprawls across nearly 21 square miles of land and contains everything from particle beam accelerators and experimental and engineering nuclear reactors to testing facilities that require large land areas and unusual terrain. The labs also operate at three other sites, including the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, the Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory in Texas, and the Kauai Test Site in Hawaii. Located about two hours south of Los Alamos National Laboratory, with its primary facility in Albuquerque and a second lab in Livermore, California, Sandia employs about 15,000 people. All of the elements of the car, except for the engine, are provided by Sandia or Sandia working with the plants.” The actual assembly of the vehicle is done at Pantex. Sandia provides the fuel system, although it gets pieces to build that from Savannah River and Kansas City. Sandia provides the brakes, the wheels, and all of the automotive electronics. What Sandia does is build the engine compartment and all the fasteners. “The engine would be designed and created by either Los Alamos or Livermore national laboratories. “Picture a nuclear weapon as a car,” Cook says. Before moving to NNSA, Don Cook spent many years in leadership at Sandia. That’s according to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) former deputy administrator for Defense Programs. The best way to understand Sandia National Laboratories’ role in the nuclear security enterprise is to think of a car. The engineering-focused facility meets national security needs.
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