MERCURY, Nev. — The next subcritical experiment in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Nimble is scheduled to fire in April, senior officials at the Nevada National Security Site site told the Exchange Monitor Wednesday.
The experiment, named Nob Hill, would be the second in the three-shot series of experiments. The first experiment, called Twin Peaks, took place in May of this year at the Cygnus test bed at the Principal Underground Laboratory for Subcritical Experimentation, also known as the U1a Complex, almost 1,000 feet underground at Nevada National Security Site (NNSS).
David Funk, vice president of enhanced capabilities for subcritical experiments at NNSS, told the Monitor at a press tour of the test site that the experiment, which will be six years in the making by the planned April shot, would take place at the Cygnus test bed as well.
Tim Beller, the subcritical experiments test director for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and director for Nob Hill, said that experiments for future test beds, ZEUS and Scorpius, are already being designed.
The Scorpius accelerator is scheduled to come online in the 2030s, while ZEUS would be completed in the 2027-28 timeframe, Funk said.
Mission Hills, the third and final planned experiment in the Nimble series, is scheduled to take place a “couple years out,” Beller said.
