New Research Facility at Kirtland

Air Force Research Lab officials last month opened the $59.5 million building at Kirtland AFB, N.M., that will house the Battlespace Environment Lab, a component of AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate. The Battlespace Environment division will operate the lab. These personnel are relocating from Hanscom AFB, Mass., courtesy of BRAC 2005, to the new 145,000 square foot building. It provides working room for the Space Weather Center of Excellence and Battlespace Surveillance Innovation Center. The lab’s two centers are charged with meteorological forecasting to protect space assets and with developing space-based reconnaissance technology, respectively. The building will house 300 personnel and roughly 220 tons of research equipment that began arriving in March. The new center opened April 21; the move-in is slated for completion in September. (Kirtland report by Connie Rankin)