Since 1949, Sandia National Laboratories has developed science-based technologies that support national security. Americans depend on Sandia technology to solve national and global threats to peace and freedom. Here, portrayed in no particular order, are 75 of those solutions…
1 NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
The nation assigned Sandia responsibility for stockpile surveillance in 1949, and it continues to play a major role in ensuring the safety and reliability of the nuclear arsenal in support of nuclear deterrence. Sandia continually evaluates components, subsystems and system performance. Today, through several large, complex, multiyear programs, it is extending the lives of all the nuclear weapons in the nation’s stockpile, most of which were initially produced more than 40 years ago.
2 SATELLITES
Beginning with the Vela satellite program for detecting nuclear bursts in the 1960s, Sandia has designed logic systems, sensors and accompanying ground processing systems to support verification of international arms control agreements. Sandia has fielded payloads and ground processing systems for 23 Defense Support Program satellites and 51 Global Positioning System satellites. In 2000, Sandia designed and built the Multispectral Thermal Imager satellite, which is still used to monitor treaty provisions, map chemical spills, detect pollution and identify volcanic activity.
3 NONPROLIFERATION
Sandia conducts major efforts to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Technologies range from microscopic sensors to large intelligence-gathering systems that help monitor international treaty compliance, theft or diversion of nuclear materials, and biological and chemical weapons programs.
4 NUCLEAR WEAPONS SECURITY
In 1960, Sandia developed the permissive action link, a coded electromechanical security lock that prevents unauthorized use of a U.S. nuclear weapon. The technology helped reassure the public that a scenario involving the detonation of a stolen nuclear weapon was impossible.
5 CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change poses a threat to national and global security, directly and as a threat multiplier. Sandia provided tools to ensure that billions of dollars of recovery funds following Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico were effectively spent to enable energy resilience and provide critical services. Thousands of miles to the north, a novel monitoring technique using sensors attached to an optical fiber that reaches the seafloor off the northern coast of Alaska has collected first-of-its-kind acoustic and seismic data that will allow researchers to better understand variations in the sensitive Arctic climate due to human and natural causes.
6 SNIFFING OUT CHEMICAL DANGERS
A Sandia chemical monitoring system called SNIFFER has been used to monitor a variety of facilities, events and venues. Developed for the Department of Homeland Security, SNIFFER is able to detect and provide early warning
7 SHOOTER ID
By using a chemical test developed by Sandia and Law Enforcement Technologies Inc., police officers now can instantly determine whether a suspect has recently fired a gun. The “instant shooter ID kit” detects gunshot residue in a matter of minutes, eliminating the need to wait for lab results that can take weeks.
8 QUANTUM COMPUTING
The U.S. government has entrusted Sandia with assessing emerging opportunities and threats stemming from quantum information science. Some areas of interest include cryptography, pharmaceutical research, energy science, advanced sensing and communications, all of which are key to national security. Over the past two decades, Sandia’s quantum information science program has combined its engineering forté with expertise in computer modeling and world-class microelectronics and nanotechnology facilities to build, characterize and share working quantum devices on a variety of technology platforms.
9 NATIONAL SECURITY
If a nuclear detonation occurs in space or the Earth’s atmosphere, the U.S. Air Force is responsible for determining the event’s significance using data from the U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System — a network of satellites, detectors and ground stations. The Integrated Correlation and Display System developed at Sandia helps simplify the work of Air Force personnel by gathering, correlating and making sense of USNDS satellite data before an operator ever sees it.
10 COLUMBIA ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION
Sandia’s expertise in materials and engineering science played a key role in helping NASA determine the cause of the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster. Using experimental materials characterization data and supercomputer simulations, Sandia showed that the most probable cause of the accident was damage to the shuttle’s wing edge from foam debris.
11 SUPERCOMPUTING
Sandia has led U.S. supercomputing innovations for decades, beginning with ASCI Red, the first computer capable of more than a trillion operations a second. Its successor, Red Storm, designed to run nuclear stockpile calculations, also modeled how changes in the composition of Earth’s atmosphere affect climate. In 2018, Sandia’s Astra became the world’s first petascale supercomputer based on Arm technology, previously used in cell phones and other low-power devices. Sandia continues to expand the high-performance computing ecosystem by evaluating and accelerating the development of emerging technologies to increase their viability for future large-scale production platforms.
12 BOMB DISABLEMENT
The shoe bomb that Richard Reid tried to detonate on a trans-Atlantic flight and a device found in the cabin of convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski were disabled using an advanced bomb squad tool originally developed at Sandia. The Percussion-Actuated Nonelectric Disrupter is manufactured by Ideal Products of Lexington, Kentucky, and is used by bomb squads nationwide.
13 NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT
As scientific advisers, Sandia helped select the site for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and provided the facility’s conceptual design, as well as the scientific understanding that formed the basis for the Environmental Protection Agency’s certification of WIPP in 1998. WIPP, the nation’s first underground nuclear waste repository, was constructed in salt beds more than 2,000 feet below ground near Carlsbad, New Mexico, and began receiving waste from nuclear weapons complex activities in 1999. Sandia extensively supported investigations into Yucca Mountain as a possible repository for highlevel waste from nuclear reactors in the 1970s and served as the lead scientific laboratory for the project, which was later canceled. Sandia continues to lead research and development to provide the technical basis for safe storage, transport and disposal of high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel.
14 MICRODEVICES IN SPACE
In March 2006, the NASA Space Technology-5 microsatellite flew fully qualified microelectromechanical system devices into space for the first time. The thermal control devices, manufactured and thoroughly tested at Sandia, allow intelligent control of the rate of heat loss from a radiator in response to heat load and external thermal fluctuations. The MEMS devices met mission requirements for packaging and power consumption and could be valuable for future micro and nano satellites.
15 NUCLEAR POWER SAFETY
In 1989, Sandia first released MELCOR, a computer software for analyzing severe accidents in nuclear power plants. The software — updated numerous times since — incorporates the results of nuclear power plant safety research since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and is the de facto standard for evaluating plant safety among utilities and nuclear regulators in the U.S. and abroad.
16 SATELLITE INTERCEPTION
In February 2008, Sandia’s Red Storm high performance computer helped the U.S. military plan and carry out the successful interception of a defective reconnaissance satellite that threatened to fall to Earth. A Sandia team ran hundreds of impact calculations using advanced modeling and simulation tools to determine the best way to ensure the 5,000-pound, car-sized satellite — traveling 153 miles above the Earth at 17,000 miles an hour — was destroyed with a single SM-3 missile shot.
17 HOT-AIR SOLDERING
While building circuit boards for the Vela satellite logic systems in the late 1960s, Travis “T. A.” Allen and Robert Sylvester invented a solder-leveling method that pushes flux across the board with hot air to ensure an even coating, and a machine to do it. Hot-air soldering was transferred to industry in 1974 and by the 1980s was saving $250 million a year, more than $700 million in today’s dollars.
18 CYBERSECURITY
Sandia has a critical role in advising and enabling the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in its mission to defend and secure cyberspace. Sandia has developed tools for CISA’s threat-hunting training. Sandia also developed a deception environment that collects information on hackers’ techniques in real time and enables identification and location of malware.
19 CLIMATE INNOVATIONS
For more than 50 years, Sandia has provided innovations to understand, mitigate and adapt to climate change. Scientists played a key role in advancing the energy savings potential of solid-state lighting, propelling research and development that led to widespread consumer use of energyefficient LED lightbulbs. Expertise that developed as a part of the Labs’ nuclear weapons mission, as well as early investigations into pollution and air movement, laid a foundation that built atmospheric science and global Earth system models for DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model, designed to produce robust, actionable predictions of Earth system variability and change.
20 SAFER AIRCRAFT ELECTRONICS
Airline technicians can now spot dangerous short-circuits before, instead of after, they happen. A Sandia technique called Pulse Arrested Spark Discharge (PASD) reveals weak spots in wiring insulation while the plane is still on the ground.
21 AVIATION SECURITY
To assess the threat of onboard explosions from terrorist bombs, Sandia developed computer models that predict the damage caused by different types of explosives in various locations on passenger aircraft. This work, done in conjunction with homemade explosives testing, was used by the Transportation Security Administration to develop new requirements for explosives detection technology used for security checkpoints, checked baggage and air cargo.
22 AIRPORT SCREENING
Sandia works with the TSA on baggage and passenger screening technologies. The familiar walkthrough portals at many airport security checkpoints use Sandia-patented technology to screen airline passengers for even minute quantities of explosives. Sandia also created an open-architecture technology platform for baggage scanning. By providing a common set of interfaces and data standards for future equipment, TSA will be able to make security updates seamlessly.
23 ANTHRAX INVESTIGATION
Sandia researchers assisted the FBI in its investigation of anthrax-containing letters mailed in 2001 to several news media offices and two U.S. senators. Using advanced microanalysis tools developed for nuclear weapons work, they analyzed hundreds of samples and determined the anthrax in the letters was not prepared to disperse more readily through the use of additives — a crucial finding that helped guide the FBI’s successful investigation.
24 TREATY VERIFICATION
From the start of nuclear testing and arms control negotiations, Sandia has provided input on the technological options for monitoring international treaty compliance. Since the 1960s, it has helped create technological solutions for monitoring via satellite and seismic systems. Sandia also created the Technical On-Site Inspection system in support of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Sandia designed, tested and delivered nonintrusive detection equipment that measures neutron levels to verify treaty compliance. The latest generation of these devices, which support monitoring the New START treaty and other international agreements, is lighter, more rugged and designed to be more sustainable.
25 ANTHRAX DECONTAMINATION
In 2001, federal authorities used a decontamination foam developed at Sandia to help rid Capitol Hill buildings of anthrax. The foam neutralizes chemical and biological agents in minutes and is nontoxic and environmentally friendly. A Sandia decontamination foam formula also was licensed to Modec Inc. and is sold as Mold Control 500 to combat the common household problems of mold and mildew.
26 ROBOTICS
The Smithsonian Institution placed nine of Sandia’s historically significant robots in its permanent collection at the National Museum of American History. They include miniature autonomous robotic vehicles developed in the mid-1990s that led to the creation of superminiature robots in 2001, selected by Time magazine as the invention of the year in robotics. Since then, Sandia has developed robots that can reach trapped miners, demilitarize submunitions and disable improvised explosive devices.
27 WIND ENERGY EFFICIENCY
An innovative, 27.5-meter-diameter wind turbine rotor developed by Sandia and industry produces up to 10% more energy than traditional linear blade designs without increasing wear and tear on the machine. Researchers at Sandia’s Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility in Lubbock, Texas, also have used data from a custom scanning lidar to model downwind turbine wakes, then developed a controller that steered the wake away from the downstream turbines to increase energy production.
28 CHEMICAL WEAPONS DESTRUCTION
The Explosive Destruction System, developed by Sandia for the U.S. Army, safely neutralizes and discards recovered chemical warfare material in an environmentally sound manner. The Army uses EDS to destroy World War I and World War II vintage chemical warfare materials, but it can also treat biological agents, biocontaminated containers and improvised biological devices.
29 MAKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAST LONGER
Sandia has completed or continues progress on life extension programs and key alterations of most of the U.S. stockpile, its largest program workload in 40 years: seven major modernization programs and three future systems. As the nation’s systems engineering lab, Sandia is responsible for integrating nuclear weapon systems and non-nuclear components for the life of the weapon, with support from NNSA and the Department of Defense and its contractors. More than 5,000 Sandia employees worked on the LEP for the B61-12 gravity bomb from 2011 to 2021, including its rigorous qualification, verification and validation testing. The B61-12 is the first complete unit built that was fully qualified from the ground up without nuclear testing.
30 STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE
America’s emergency reserve of crude oil is stored in natural salt caverns along the Gulf Coast at depths up to 5,000 feet. Since 1978, Sandia has provided guidance on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, including helping DOE to evaluate and choose additional storage sites when SPR was increased to a capacity of one billion barrels. Sandia also assessed the geotechnical and engineering impacts of withdrawing hundreds of millions of barrels of oil for national priorities by analyzing well integrity, inventory and optimal use of the reserve’s caverns.
31 COUNTERTERRORISIM
For decades, radiation incident responders from Sandia and other DOE sites have been keeping watch over high-visibility national events, such as the Super Bowl, the World Series and national political conventions. They sweep stadiums and nearby sites seeking traces of radioactivity, possible precursors to a terrorist attack. They have developed the standard for gamma spectroscopy software used in detection and analysis worldwide, and constantly push the frontiers of research to improve the sensitivity of the detectors they use.
32 MOLTEN SALT TECHNOLOGY
Molten salt technology to capture and store the sun’s heat was developed at Sandia and was key to the Solar Two power plant near Barstow, California. This technology enabled Solar Two to produce enough power to supply 10,000 homes. Recent advances at Sandia have achieved a world-record high-temperature molten salt test, potentially extending this technology’s operating range.
33 COMBUSTION SCIENCE
Since 1981, researchers at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility have developed ways to detect and measure chemical species in flames, reduce air pollution from engines and coal-powered utility plants, and characterize combustion taking place inside automobile and truck engines. At the DOE user facility, open to outside researchers, they have revolutionized current understanding of combustion and continue to work with industry to develop more efficient, cleaner-burning combustion processes and devices.
34 DRILLING TECHNOLOGY
In the 1970s, a promising new rock drilling technology — the polycrystalline diamond compact drill bit — was introduced, but results in the field were disappointing as cutters broke, separated from bits or wore too quickly. Sandia research and modeling, industry collaboration and field testing helped to identify and fix design deficiencies. Now, PDC bits account for about two-thirds of all oil and gas drilling due to their efficiency and resistance to wear. The technology enabled a switch from coal to natural gas that significantly reduced U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Sandia also has tested PDC bits in more challenging hard rock fields to unleash geothermal energy.
35 SOLAR POWER
Since 1996, Sandia has helped bring power to more than 400 homes on the Navajo reservation, using solar technologies such as photovoltaics. Through the DOE Tribal Energy Program, Sandia provides technical assistance in procuring equipment and teaching residents how to manage and maintain renewable energy systems.
36 MILITARY SENSING
During the Vietnam War, Sandia developed a family of earth-penetrating, air-dropped sensors used to detect enemy forces, particularly troops moving into South Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Capable of detecting even human footsteps, the highly sensitive seismic intrusion detectors were credited with helping break the siege of Khe Sanh in 1968.
37 ADVANCED RADAR
Sandia is a world leader in advancing synthetic aperture radar, which can produce high-resolution, almost photolike images of terrain and structures through inclement weather and at night. Sandiadeveloped SAR systems have been used by the military in such conflicts as Desert Storm and Kosovo. In 2014, Sandia transferred Copperhead — a modified MiniSAR system mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles and used to uncover improvised explosive devices — to the U.S. Army.
38 COMPUTATION-BASED PRODUCT DESIGN
Goodyear’s Assurance TripleTred tire, the most recommended all-season tire for passenger cars following its introduction in 2004, was the result of a partnership with Sandia. Sandia’s powerful computer codes allowed Goodyear to produce innovative tires in record time by eliminating the need for repeated prototype development, testing and redesign.
39 INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Since 1994, Sandia’s Cooperative Monitoring Center has brought individuals from more than 120 countries to neutral ground to develop technical solutions to mutual security problems. Unique in the world, the center develops and offers training in an array of technologies for improving regional security, building trust among nations and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
40 USS IOWA INVESTIGATION
A Sandia investigation for the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee of the 1989 explosion aboard the USS Iowa found no evidence to support the theory that a crew member deliberately set off the explosion that killed him and 46 others. The Sandia team also found that an overram of the powder bags as the gun was being loaded was a possible accidental cause of the explosion; the U.S. Navy disagreed, concluding the cause could not be determined.
41 CHEMISTRY
In the late 1970s, scientists at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility needed a more efficient way of solving combustion problems involving complex chemical kinetics phenomena. Their homegrown code became CHEMKIN, a software suite licensed by industry and used worldwide in the microelectronics, combustion and chemical processing industries.
42 MINE SAFETY
The January 2006 explosion that killed 12 miners in West Virginia’s Sago Mine was most likely triggered by the effects of a lightning strike traveling deep into the mine, a Sandia investigation concluded. The findings were included in the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration report, which led to proposals for new safety measures for mines.
43 CHEMICAL ATTACK DETECTION
In 2000, PROTECT became the nation’s first permanently installed detection and response system for chemical attacks in a public facility when a prototype was deployed in the Washington, D.C. Metro. In this multilab project that began in 1998, Sandia selected and field tested available commercial detectors and designed the advanced sensor network for the system, which also assists transit operators with emergency response to attacks. In 2004, PROTECT was used to guard against chemical attacks at national political conventions.
44 SPACECRAFT INSPECTIONS
After the Columbia space shuttle disaster, NASA needed a way to inspect the shuttle’s thermal protection shield prior to landing. A Sandiadeveloped sensor and robotic arm system allowed crews to check for tiny cracks and other damage flew on more than a dozen space shuttle missions.
45 CLEAN ROOM TECHNOLOGY
When Sandian Willis Whitfield came up with the idea for the laminar airflow clean room, it was intended to provide a dust-free environment for manufacturing close-tolerance weapons parts. Little did he or anyone else know that his idea would become a basic enabling technology for the $1.5 trillion electronics industry, improve hospital operating room safety and advance space exploration.
46 AVIATION SAFETY
Takeoffs, landings, pressurization and temperature changes take their toll on commercial aircraft, causing tiny cracks in the aluminum skin that must be patched and contained. An improved fuselage patch developed by Sandia and partners Delta Airlines, Textron Systems Division and Lockheed Martin, and approved by the FAA, repairs cracks using a flexible composite material instead of the old riveted metal plates, which can cause cracks themselves.
47 ASTEROID TRACKING
In October 2008, a global team that included Sandians Mark Boslough and Dick Spalding was able for the first time to detect and track an asteroid heading toward Earth and predict its time and place of impact. While the small asteroid posed no danger, the ability to provide early warning could be critical for larger asteroids, which strike the Earth a few times a century, or the ubiquitous space debris now in orbit.
48 CRYPTOLOGY AND AUTHENTICATION
During the 1960s and ‘70s, cryptologist Gustavus Simmons pioneered the theory of authentication, used to verify adherence to nuclear weapons treaties. Simmons’ work in authentication enabled secure e-commerce.
49 MODERN ELECTRONICS
In the 1980s, Sandia scientist Gordon Osbourn originated the field of strained layer superlattices by making the first calculations to predict their unique electrical and optical properties. This work led to revolutionary advances in electronics and optoelectronics.
50 NEXT-GENERATION MICROELECTRONICS
A milestone in microprocessor technology was achieved in 2001 when Sandia, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley national labs and a consortium of chipmakers developed and demonstrated an extreme ultraviolet lithography system for producing the next generation of more powerful microchips. EUVL enables patterning of silicon wafers with a much shorter wavelength of light than earlier systems, enabling more densely packed transistors and therefore higher speeds and better performance. Manufacturers worldwide now use EUVL in high-end chip manufacturing.
51 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Sandia is actively engaged in regional innovation through several programs, including the Sandia Science & Technology Park and the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program. Established in 1998, the park is home to 41 companies and organizations and provides about 2,000 jobs, with more than $7.7 billion in wages and salaries paid over its 25-year life. Since 2000, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratory have provided technical assistance to more than 3,267 businesses in all 33 New Mexico counties through NMSBA. Projects have ranged from helping Nambé Pueblo create a water distribution model to using artificial intelligence and machine learning to model the actions of small interfering RNA in treating human diseases.
52 DIGITAL PALEONTOLOGY
In 1997, scientists at Sandia and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science recreated a vocalization of a crested dinosaur that lived 75 million years ago. Using powerful computers, computed tomography scans and a rare Parasaurolophus skull (pictured), they produced a low-frequency rumbling sound that the dinosaur could have made.
53 EMPLOYEE GIVING
Since Sandia’s employee contribution plan introduced payroll deductions in 1957, Sandia employees and retirees have provided at least 15% of the United Way of Central New Mexico’s annual contributions, with more than $125 million donated to date. In addition, Sandians participate in school supply, reading, holiday gift, kids clothing and other drives every year.
54 AIRBAG SENSORS
Invented in the 1960s by Sandian Don Wilkes, rolamite switches were used to trigger the deployment of automobile airbags until they were replaced in the mid-1990s by electronic sensors. Originally developed to detect a nuclear warhead's acceleration pattern, the rolamite is a nearly frictionless mechanical device consisting of a roller suspended within a tensioned band.
55 AUTOMATED WHEELCHAIR CUSHION
Pressure sores among wheelchair users are a common problem, often leading to serious complications or death. Sandia and Numotech Inc. have developed a wheelchair cushion based on microprocessorcontrolled inflatable air pockets that inflate and deflate to help prevent and heal pressure ulcers.
56 FUKUSHIMA ACCIDENT CLEANUP
Developed by Sandia in the early 1990s, crystalline silico-titanate was used to remove radioactive material from more than 43 million gallons of contaminated wastewater at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Sandia researchers worked around the clock following the March 2011 partial meltdown to deploy the technology in seawater pumped in to cool the plant’s towers.
57 DEEPWATER HORIZON ACCIDENT RESPONSE
On April 20, 2010, Macondo Well 252 suffered a natural gas blowout that resulted in 11 deaths and 17 injuries. The explosion and fire led to the sinking of the BP drilling platform Deepwater Horizon off the coast of Louisiana and the largest marine oil spill in history. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu asked Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories to directly support the federal response. For five months, Sandia staff in BP’s Houston office aided the effort to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
58 STINGRAY BOMB DISRUPTOR
Thousands of Sandia-developed Stingray bomb disrupters were sent to Afghanistan and military training sites by a New Mexico small business to protect U.S. and allied soldiers. Explosives ordnance technicians or soldiers place the waterfilled Stingray device, which is capable of penetrating steel, near a suspected bomb or package. It then shreds or punches a hole in the item with a high-velocity jet of water, without setting off the high explosives. The device is small enough to be carried in a backpack and rugged enough to be placed by a robot.
59 RAPID MEDICAL RESPONSE
In 2012, Sandia developed a small, portable medical diagnostic device capable of detecting viruses, bacteria and active toxins and analyzing critical patient data in a matter of minutes. By 2019, SpinDx was able to search for genetic codes in any virus, parasite or bacteria while detecting toxin proteins. SpinDx has been licensed by industry partners for uses as diverse as male fertility testing and monitoring water supply safety.
60 GRID MODERNIZATION
To improve the resiliency and reliability of the nation’s electric infrastructure, Sandia’s Microgrid Design Toolkit is used to design microgrids and backup power systems for military bases, private companies and cities affected by extreme weather events. Researchers at Sandia also developed a control system that uses real-time data to reduce inter-area oscillations on the grid, saving money and increasing stability.
61 CONCENTRATING SOLAR POWER
Commissioned in 1978, the National Solar Thermal Test Facility is home to the world’s first multimegawatt solar tower and is the only largescale, high-flux testing facility in North America. Forty-five years of concentrating solar power research at the facility has contributed to energy, space exploration, national defense and commercial solar power.
62 EDUCATION OUTREACH
Sandia has encouraged thousands of students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math through a variety of K-12 education programs. Sandia employees volunteer for a myriad of hands-on math and science activities for elementary school children that emphasize the fun of science, and offer in-depth experiments for middle school and high school students that reinforce the value of science and engineering.
63 HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
In 2016, a Sandia study found that it was technically and economically feasible to build and operate a high-speed passenger ferry powered solely by zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells. A follow-on study in 2018 concluded it also was possible to power a research vessel using the clean, quiet technology. The research led to the first fuel cell vessel built in the U.S.; the first commercial fuel cell ferry in the world; and efforts by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to design, build and deploy the first hydrogen-powered research vessel.
64 GLOBAL DIAGNOSTIC LABS
Sandia has helped in the design of diagnostic labs around the world that are safe, secure, sustainable, specific and flexible. The Prototype Lab tool, developed in 2017, quickly generates construction drawings so international partners can prepare blueprints for builders in about half the usual time. The tool has been used for such designs as the central veterinary lab in Iraq and a foot-and-mouth disease diagnostic lab in Kenya. Using modeling and simulation, Sandia also developed an optimized blood sample transportation network that dramatically improved Ebola diagnosis time during the 2014 epidemic.
65 HYPERSONICS
In 2017, Sandia conducted its first successful flight test of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body designed for the U.S. Army and Navy. The system was based, in part, on a maneuverable hypersonic vehicle the Labs flew in 1985, called the Sandia Winged Re-entry Vehicle Experiment. Sandia has developed and tested many navigation, guidance, control and thermal protection technologies for the nation’s hypersonic weapons and is exploring advanced autonomy and machine learning algorithms for trajectory planning and in-flight maneuverability.
66 PULSED POWER
Since the 1960s, Sandia’s pulsed power devices have helped ensure the performance of every nuclear weapon system in the stockpile. The workhorses of pulsed power include the Z machine, the world’s most powerful and efficient laboratory radiation source, capable of creating conditions found nowhere else on Earth; Hermes III, the world’s most powerful gamma ray producer; and Saturn, an X-ray simulation source.
67 NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING
Research inspired by the human brain has led to breakthrough technology and software. The Neuromorphic Cyber Microscope’s brain-inspired design can quickly and efficiently detect indicators of a cyberattack. Sandia’s Whetstone, Fugu and N2A open-source software tools allow deployment of artificial intelligence and scientific computing algorithms on neuromorphic hardware, enabling neural computer networks to process information up to a hundred times more efficiently. Sandia also has introduced novel algorithms and metrics that evaluate the usefulness of neuromorphic computing systems with numbers of neurons approaching those of the human brain in its Neural Exploration Research Laboratory.
68 HARNESSING ALGAE’S MULTIPLE BENEFITS
Sandia’s Salton Sea Biomass Remediation Project cleans water while producing a renewable, domestic source of fuel. By optimizing the yield of algae grown through “attached algae cultivation,” the project seeks scalable means to remove nutrient pollution — especially in agricultural runoff — from bodies of water by growing algae for bio-based products and fuel. The work holds promise for environmental remediation, jobs and economic growth, clean energy and energy security. The approach is being tested to remediate water and harvest biomass for potential energy production in Texas, Georgia, Hawaii and elsewhere.
69 SAFE BATTERIES
About 16% of vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2023 were electric or hybrid, each carrying hundreds of pounds of lithium-ion batteries. While no car crash is safe, decades of work and thousands of critical scientific studies at Sandia’s Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory have helped inform battery design and manufacturing. The BATLab, built in 1991, reveals what happens to batteries when they are crushed or chopped with 500 pounds of force, punctured by an object like a nail, rapidly heated in a car fire or encounter other destructive scenarios.
70 LAW ENFORCEMENT
Diversionary devices, such as flash-bangs or stun grenades that law enforcement and the military use to temporarily distract or disorient an adversary, can result in serious injuries because they function by creating a small explosion. Sandia developed a safer, nonexplosive flash-bang technology and licensed it to industry in 2008.
71 HYDROGEN MONITORING
The ability to detect and monitor hydrogen — a colorless, odorless and flammable gas — is critical wherever it is produced, used, stored or transported. A Sandia-developed sensor that can detect hydrogen has been commercialized by H2scan of Valencia, California, and is now used in such areas as petroleum refining, hydrogen production and nuclear facilities.
72 PLANETARY EXPLORATION
When the Pathfinder spacecraft hit the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997, it bounced and rolled rather than crashlanded, largely as a result of airbags designed by Sandia and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The airbags were based on parachute technology developed for nuclear weapons.
73 TWA FLIGHT 800 INVESTIGATION
Sandia computer modeling efforts helped guide the National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the July 1996 TWA Flight 800 accident, which killed all 230 people on board. The international investigative team concluded that the accident was most likely caused by the unintended ignition of fuel-air vapors in the jetliner’s central fuel tank, resulting in a midair explosion.
74 RADIATION HARDENING
The ability of the Galileo spacecraft to survive Jupiter’s radiation belts was made possible by radiation-hardened components designed and built by Sandia. Launched in 1989, Galileo traveled 2.8 billion miles and endured more than four times the dose of Jovian radiation it was designed to withstand before disintegrating in the planet’s atmosphere in 2003.
75 GOING TO THE MOON
Sandia worked with NASA to support some elements of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. Work on improving the clean room in the early 1960s led Sandia to develop standards for planetary quarantine — to keep Earth contaminants off other planets and other-worldly contaminants off Earth. Sandia also provided analysis and testing of radioisotopic heaters to warm seismic instruments left on the moon by astronauts of Apollo 11, testing of astronaut seating design, technical direction for the SNAP-27 isotopic generator, and input to NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.