Laboratories and Equipment

The central facility of the new Space Radiation Laboratory at Northrop Corporation’s Norair Division in Hawthorne, Calif., will be a General Atomic Triga Mark‐F “pulsing” reactor, which is scheduled for completion by early next year. The reactor will be capable of being pulsed to peak power levels of about 1.2 million kilowatts for fractions of a second at repeated intervals and will be used to study the behavior of vehicle components, materials, and electronic subsystems exposed to intensive bursts of neutrons and gamma radiation. An oversized pool of demineralized water surrounding the reactor core will permit immersing capsules containing full‐size missile and space‐vehicle components for exposure to radiation. Other studies will be conducted in a dry exposure room to be constructed adjacent to the reactor pool. Operating at its steadystate energy level of 100 thermal kilowatts, the reactor will also be used for neutron‐physics research and for the production of radioisotopes.

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