AFRL to open new lab next month

  • Published
  • By Connie Rankin
  • 377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Kirtland Air Force Base, NM --  Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicle Directorate's Battlespace Environment Laboratory is complete and ready for a ribbon-cutting ceremony April 21. It will be two years from the groundbreaking ceremony April 15, 2009 to the completion of the state-of-the-art facility.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company a contract for $53.5 million to construct the 145,000-square-foot laboratory Oct. 22, 2008. The building is the largest Air Force laboratory on Kirtland Air Force Bases west side.

Construction of AFRL's Space Vehicle Directorate's laboratory is a result of the congressional 2005 Base Realignment and Closure decision, directing the relocation of Air Force Research Laboratory's Battlespace Environment Division from Hanscom AFB, Mass., to Kirtland AFB.

"The Battlespace Environment Laboratory represents the culmination of six years of planning and efforts aimed at transferring the BEL to Kirtland," said Dr. Joel Mozer, deputy division chief for the Battlespace Environment Division. "However, the building only represents a portion of the efforts to ensure that the mission of the division is preserved and that we maintain our pre-eminence in basic research related to the space environment."

The Battlespace Environment Division, once known as the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, is one of the Air Force's oldest laboratories. The division consists of the Space Weather Center of Excellence, which studies solar effects in the space and ionospheric environment to forecast and mitigate the disturbances, and the Battlespace Surveillance Innovation Center, which develops space-based detection capabilities.

The facility will be used to conduct tests in high-vacuum environments, environmental calibration, chemistry and spectrometry, computer modeling, processing of space data, space operation, remote sensing and quantum computing. The goal is to alert the warfighter on potential problems with space systems in the harsh space environment.

The relocation will improve efficiency and effectiveness of the research and development through closer collaboration with other scientists and engineers working with AFRL's Space Vehicles Directorate's divisions at Kirtland AFB. The relocation will add 25 military, 152 government civilians and 50 contractor positions to the Albuquerque area. Many of the job opportunities were available as early as June 2009. The annual operating budget for the Battlespace Environment Division is approximately $89 million.

"BEL represents a magnificent facility for our existing employees to move into and to recruit top-notch new scientists to replace employees who chose not to make the BRAC move," said Dr. Mozer. "The completion of the BEL allows us to smoothly transition from Hanscom to Kirtland with a minimum of downtime. As Maj. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, Commander, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, says 'We are changing the tires while traveling down the road.' "