- High Energy Research and Technology Facility
(HERTF)
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- The High Energy Research and Technology
Facility (HERTF) at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, is a premier Phillips
Laboratory capability for research, development and transition of advanced
weapons technologies.
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- This $9 million facility provides a unique
capability for the development of high-power microwaves, high-energy advanced
pulsed power (including explosive devices), and very- high-energy plasmas.
It also provides a research environment for exploring a variety of related
technologies. The facility's remote location in the Manzano Mountains is
coupled with aunique construction, which is designed to withstand blasts
and intense radiation from a variety of sources, including high-energy
microwaves and x-rays.
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- HERTF is located in a canyon in the Manzano
Mountains in the southeast portion of Kirtland. The facility has a four-story-high
bay laboratory, 80 feet by 150 feet, with concrete roofand walls four feet
thick for blast and radiation shielding. The high bay includes two bridge
cranes, cable trays, a 12-foot-deep pit for intense radiation source experiments,
and access tunnels to an explosive firing areanearthe highbay. Up to 1000
pounds of high explosives can be detonated in this area to produce hundreds
of megajoules of electrical energy needed for these advanced experiments.
The facility also contains offices and smaller laboratories where advanced
weapons technology experiments and demonstrations can be conducted safely
and securely.
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- HERTF was designed to scale high-power
microwave and high-energy plasma concepts that were pursued for many years
in the Laboratory's basic research and exploratory development efforts.
It was difficult to advance these concepts with the limited facilities
available before HERTF was completed. With this facility, technologies
can be advanced to a weapons level. Also, advanced weapons environments
can be created, allowing scientists to assess the potential threat of these
weapons to United States military systems.
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- Although the Laboratory's high-power
microwave technology is considerably advanced, HERTF is essential in conducting
many of the critical experiments still needed to assess the feasibility
of the technology for operational systems.
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- Compact, high-energy pulsed power is
an enabling technology for many advanced weapon concepts and effects simulation
devices. HERTF is designed to play a major role in the Phillips Laboratory'
s development of "next generation" high-energy pulsed power devices.
Research and development includes the generation and conditioning of large
amounts of electrical energy needed for advanced weapon technologies.
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- High-energy plasma work at HERTF allows
a dramatic power increase for compact toroid experiments compared to other
Phillips Laboratory facilities, such as a 10-megajoule capacitor bank.
These high-energy plasmas provide the intense radiation environment needed
to simulate threat-level nuclear-weapon effects in space. These plasmas
are used to support research on fusion energy, and they permit Laboratory
scientists to assess potential space-weapon concepts.
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- SOURCES
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- * High Energy Research and Technology
Facility (HERTF)
- * WEAPONS -- DEW-High Power Microwave
(HPM)
- * AF2025 v3c14-3b | Space Operations:
Through The Looking Glass (Ch 3b)
- * 0603605F Advanced Weapons Technology
- * SENSORS -- RF Components
- * Statement of Lieutenant General Robert
L. Schweitzer, U.S. Army (Retired)
- * 29 0603605F Advanced Weapons Technology
- FY98 USAF Military Space RDDS
- * DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY AREA PLAN -- WEAPONS
- * DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY AREA PLAN -- SENSORS,
ELECTRONICS, AND BATTLESPACE
- ENVIRONMENT
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