Small move, big impact for AFRL mission and space superiority

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Karima Turner
  • New Mexico National Guard Public Affairs
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  After nearly 15 months of planning and preparation, the giant vacuum sphere - emblazoned with the Air Force Research Laboratory crest - was relocated Dec. 17 between the AFRL buildings off the east end of the runway.

The vacuum sphere, which is used to augment the existing vacuum system, significantly enhances AFRL Directed Energy Directorate's laser testing capabilities. The cost-saving relocation reinforces the directorate's capacity in ensuring Air Force space superiority.

The massive sphere, which weighs 153,000 pounds and measures more than 42 feet in height and 38 feet in diameter, was originally built on the south end of the runway between 2003 and 2004. Due to the decommissioning and planned demolition of the former AFRL site, it was decided that it would be more cost effective and scientifically beneficial to move the sphere rather than have it demolished along with the site it sat on.

Jason Underwood, an engineer in the 377th Mission Support Group's Civil Engineer Division, said planning, coordinating and conducting the move was challenging but successful.

"It was complex, with where the sphere was positioned on the flight line and the coordination we had to do for this movement, but it went really well," Underwood said. "I really appreciate the way that the contractors and all of the different entities came together to make this a successful mission."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and engineers from the 377th Maintenance Group, Albuquerque Sunport, AFRL, Air Force contractors, Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, Groundhog Excavating Inc., Chenega Corporation, and Emmert International developed a plan to move the sphere from its former location, the original gas-laser research facility that dated back to the mid-1970s.

"That facility is being decommissioned and we are consolidating all of the research here at the Davis Advanced Laser Facility," said Kevin Hewett, AFRL program manager. "It made sense to move the large capital expense that we had invested in the sphere to this facility. When it was built, it cost almost a million dollars to build, so it was essentially cheaper to move it than scrap it and build a new one."

Hewett said that the vacuum pumps have a certain pumping capacity of liters per minute of gas, and having the sphere relocated would allow for a greater variety of experiments.

"If we have experiments that need much higher flow rates for short periods of time, we can dump the gas into the sphere and pump the gas out slowly using the existing vacuum system at the facility," he said. "This facility is geared toward gas-laser research, so during the experiments we excite gasses to make a laser. We flow those gasses, so the higher the flow rate, the larger the laser we can operate."

"I think we will be very happy when the final connections to the sphere are made to the facility," Hewett added. "It will provide us an enhanced capability on the facility which in the long term will enable us to do experiments that we otherwise could not have performed, so that's always a plus."

Although the move was massive, operationally it was a much smaller project than USACE is used to.

"For the Corps, it's been an awesome project. It's something unique that we don't see very often, and the way it was moved, I've never seen it done before," said Erin Laravey, USACE project engineer. "It's intriguing in that aspect, but I wouldn't say it was a very difficult project. The cost was low and there weren't a lot of different processes going on at once, so for us it was fairly simple."