Name: Building 5000 (Building 5100, 5200, 5300)
Other Names:
Address:
Location: Pelindaba
Website:
Phone Number:
Subordinate to:
Size: Consists of four buildings: Buildings 5000, 5100, 5200, and 5300.
Primary function: In the 1970s, the facility was used for conducting criticality experiments and to develop a nuclear explosive. Today, these facilities are either abandoned or dedicated to non-nuclear uses. Building 5000 contained a pulse reactor, which was used as a fast critical assembly in an experiment called "tickling the tail of the dragon" that proved the design of the gun-type device. Building 5100 contained a control room for Building 5000, offices, research and development laboratories, and machining facilities for uranium metal. Building 5200 was a critical facility to verify individually the multiplication factors of the two parts of a nuclear explosive device. Building 5300 was a laboratory for high explosives that were shaped with machines at this facility.
Description: Building 5000 has been abandoned except for some old equipment and waste barrels from other parts of the site. In the 1970s, Building 5000's HEU went critical. The first nuclear explosive device was assembled in Building 5200 in 1979. In October 1992, well after the Pelindaba facility closed in the early 1980s, Nucleonics Week revealed that Building 5000 had carried out nuclear activities in the 1970s. According to official sources, equipment, used "to shape spherical fissile cores for a nuclear explosive device" was found on the site.
[Key Sources: David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, "South Africa's Nuclear Weaponization Efforts: Success on a Small-Scale," ISIS Report, 13 September 2001, <http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/safrica.pdf>; "South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program: Building Bombs," Federation of American Scientists, 7 September 2001, <http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Safrica/SABuildingBombs.html >; David Albright and Mark Hibbs, "South Africa: The ANC and the Atom Bomb," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1993, http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1993/a93/a93AlbrightHibbs.html>; David Albright, "South Africa and the Affordable Bomb," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1994, <http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1994/ja94/ja94Albright.html>].
Name: Kentron Circle Facility
Other Names: Advena Circle Facility, Advena Central Laboratories
Address:
Location: Kentron Circle, located 20km west of Pretoria, within another ARMSCOR site called Gerotek; Advena Central Laboratories is located 15km east of the Pelindaba facility.
Website:
Phone Number:
Subordinate to: ARMSCOR
Size: The Kentron Circle Facility consisted of the Circle building and an environmental test facility for the development and integration of gun-type devices.
Primary function: To design, assemble, produce, and store nuclear weapons.
The Kentron Circle Facility worked on developing implosion weapons with a capacity to "develop test diagnostics, HE tests cells to perfect explosives placement for proper core compression, and metal machining equipment for the cores." Although most efforts were spent on producing a highly reliable gun-type device, the facility also worked on lithium-6 separation for the production of tritium for possible future use in boosted devices, studied the implosion and thermonuclear technology, and conducted research and development for the production and recovery of plutonium and tritium. The Circle Building, a two-story building with a total of 8,000 square meters of floor space, housed the facilities to develop and manufacture nuclear devices, including facilities for testing internal ballistics, igniter, propellants, and small quantities of high explosives for self-destruct mechanisms. The environmental test building was involved in the development and integration of the gun-type devices.
The Advena Central Laboratories expanded nuclear delivery options to ballistic missiles. This complex was expected to contain a cold implosion test facility, which was deemed essential for proving an implosion design. As it was being completed, the plans for expansion were abandoned in 1989.
Description: The Kentron Circle Facility was built in 1980 and was authorized to operate in May 1981. Before the program's abandonment in 1989, the facility produced South Africa's second nuclear device in April 1982 and subsequently four others. After sending the last material to the AEC, the Circle building was decontaminated and equipment that had been used for the re-melting and casting HEU were sent to the AEC. The main uranium processing section of the facility was also decontaminated - the walls were removed and the concrete floor was jacked out. The Kentron Circle Facility and Advena Central Laboratories were converted to commercial enterprises operated by Denel.
[Key Sources: Lt. Col. Roy Horton, "Out of South Africa: Pretoria's Nuclear Weapons Experience," US Air Force Institute of Institute of National Security Studies Occasional Paper, 27, (August 1999), 7, <http://www.nyu.edu/global/beat/nuclear/Horton0899.html>; Rodney W. Jones, Mark G. McDonough, with Toby F. Dalton & Gregory D. Koblentz, "South Africa," in Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts, 1998 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998), 248; "South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program: Building Bombs," Federation of American Scientists, 7 September 2001, <http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Safrica/SABuildingBombs.html >; "South Africa Comes Clean," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1993, <http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1993/may93/may93Bulletins.html>; "South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program Putting Down the Sword," 7 September 2001, <http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Safrica/SADisarming.html>; David Albright, "South Africa and the Affordable Bomb," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1994, <http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1994/ja94/ja94Albright.html>; David Albright, "Slow but Steady," The Bulleting of Atomic Scientists, July/August 1993, <http://www.the bulleting.org/issues/1993/ja93/ja93Bulletings.html>].
Name: Somchem
Other Names:
Address:
Location: Cape Province
Website:
Phone Number:
Subordinate to: The facility was subordinate to ARMSCOR until the 1990s. Since then, it has been under the direction of Denel Limited.
Size:
Primary function: Research and development of mechanical and pyrotechnic subsystems for gun-type nuclear weapons.
Description: In May 1974, a team of South Africans working at Somchem developed and tested a scale model of a gun-type device, with a projectile constructed of non-nuclear material. Since the test proved the feasibility of a nuclear explosive, the team also tested the first full-scale model of the gun-type device using a natural uranium projectile in 1976, proving the mechanical integrity of the design. In 1977, the program was transferred from Somchem to Pelindaba.
[Key Sources: David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, "South Africa's Nuclear Weaponization Efforts: Success on a Small-Scale," ISIS Report, 13 September 2001, <http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/safrica.pdf>; "South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program: Building Bombs," Federation of American Scientists, 7 September 2001, <http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Safrica/SABuildingBombs.html >; David Albright, "South Africa and the Affordable Bomb," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1994, <http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1994/ja94/ja94Albright.html>].
Name: Vastrap test range
Other Names:
Address:
Location: Kalahari Desert; north of Upington
Website:
Phone Number:
Subordinate to: ARMSCOR
Size:
Primary function: Artillery testing
Description: South Africa began searching for a test site in 1973 and successfully constructed two test shafts in the Kalahari Desert in 1976 and 1977. The site consisted of a shed over the two test shafts, both a meter in diameter, with one shaft 385 meters and the other, 216 meters in depth. Armscor reportedly built a shed over the shafts to conceal operations there. Soviet surveillance satellites detected test preparation at the shaft in 1977 and ensuing U.S. pressure and other international reactions (e.g., Soviet Union and France) forced South Africa to close both shafts.
[Key Sources: "South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program: Building Bombs," Federation of American Scientists, 7 September 2001, <http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Safrica/SABuildingBombs.html >; Lt. Col. Roy Horton, "Out of South Africa: Pretoria's Nuclear Weapons Experience," US Air Force Institute of Institute of National Security Studies Occasional Paper, 27, (August 1999), 7, <http://www.nyu.edu/global/beat/nuclear/Horton0899.html>; David Albright and Mark Hibbs, "South Africa: The ANC and the Atom Bomb," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1993 <http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1993/a93/a93AlbrightHibbs.html>; "South Africa Comes Clean," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1993, <http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1993/may93/may93Bulletins.html>; David Albright, "South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program," Institute for Science and International Security, 14 March 2001, <http://web.mit.edu/ssp/spring01/albright.htm>; "South Africa and the Affordable Bomb," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1994, <http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1994/ja94/ja94Albright.html>].
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Updated April 2004 |
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