How do you get the experience and technical proficiency needed to successfully execute high-level experiments on unique equipment without engaging the equipment itself?
When you have equipment and capabilities unavailable anywhere else in the world, you quickly find that your technical workforce and collaborators need training you can’t find anywhere else in the world, either. Such is the case with NNSS’ Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research facility (JASPER), Area 11, BEEF, and each of the subcritical experiment testbeds located at the PULSE facility.
NNSS’s solution: the Shock-Activated Research Collaboration Launcher, also known as the ShARC Launcher. Essentially a scaled-down version of the JASPER two-stage gas gun, it’s smaller, modular, and easier to prepare for use. Site researchers use it to conduct physics experiments, test diagnostic equipment, provide the technical workforce with skillset development and training opportunities, and to conduct supplemental “dry runs” for larger scale experiments at the JASPER facility. It’s also easier to get to: whereas the higher-stakes experimental testbeds are located anywhere from 90-100 miles northwest of Las Vegas at the Site, the ShARC launcher is housed in the NNSS’ North Las Vegas Facility.Watch this video to learn more about the ShARC Launcher and the benefits this unique and highly-adaptable platform brings to the NNSS’ national security mission