Laboratory Information:
Naval Air Warfare Center - Weapons Division - China Lake and Pt. Mugu
Code 4L4000D
1900 N. Knox Road STOP 6312
China Lake, CA 93555-6106
Website: http://www.navair.navy.mil/nawcwd/
Technology Transfer Website: http://www.navair.navy.mil/nawcwd/techTrans/index.cfm?map=local.ccms.view.aB&doc=home.1
Agency/Department: Dept. of Defense - Navy
Region: Far West
FLC Laboratory Representative:
Dr. Michael Seltzer
Phone: 760-939-1074
Fax: 760-939-1210
Email: michael.seltzer@navy.mil
Background/History of the Laboratory:
The Naval Air
Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake is located about
150 miles north of Los Angeles, and covers over a million
acres of Southern California's Mojave Desert. In 1943,
adequate facilities were needed for test and evaluation of
rockets developed by the California Institute of Technology
(CalTech). At the same time, the Navy needed a new proving
ground for all aviation ordnance. The Naval Ordnance Test
Station (NOTS) was established in response to those needs in
November 1943. This vast, sparsely populated desert, with
near-perfect flying weather year-round and practically
unlimited visibility, proved an ideal location not only for
test and evaluation (T&E) activities, but also for a
complete research and development (R&D) establishment as
well. The early Navy-CalTech partnership established a
pattern of cooperative interaction between civilian
scientists and experienced military personnel that has made
China Lake one of the preeminent RDT&E institutions in
the world. In 1967 NOTS became the Naval Weapons Center and
now it is known as the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons
Division, China Lake. There are approximately 4,200 civilian
employees, including 1,000 scientists and engineers, and 450
military personnel at China Lake. The estimated annual budget
is approximately $800 million.
Mission of the Laboratory:
NAWCWPNS provides
technical and material support to the fleet for land-based
flight test and evaluation of Navy weapons systems, conducts
high-energy laser systems and subsystems test and evaluation,
serves as launch agent for suborbital space systems and
research rockets, and participates in the operation of the
DoD Missile Test Range at White Sands Missile
Range.
Facilities:
Technology Transfer Mechanisms:
- Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs)
- Facility Sharing
- Independent Research and Development (IR&D)
- Partnerships with Industry
- Patents and Licensing
- Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR)
- Technical Assistance
Technology Areas of Expertise:
- High speed Cordin cameras, blast pressure arrays, high speed digital data acquisition systems, high speed video
- High temperature materials
- Image correction
- Insensitive Munitions Advanced Development (IMAD) Testing
- Integrated Battlespace Arena
- Laser devices
- Laser interaction with matter
- Abhesive-resistant optical coatings
- Advanced initiation testing and evaluation (slapper and laser initiation)
- Aeroheat testing
- Air storage
- Air temperature
- Atmospheric propagation
- Ballistic evaluation of aircraft guns and ammunition
- Cameras
- Coatings and plating technology
- Component integration and in-service engineering support
- Composite materials
- Composite materials design, analysis, and fabrication
- Computational fluid dynamics
- Confined burn assessment
- Design, analysis, development, and testing of bombs, warheads, fuzes, solid rocket motors, and air-breathing engines
- Detonation mechanics characterization of explosives and warheads
- Electrically conductive optical coatings
- Electronic data acquisition
- Ellipsometry/polarimetry
- Energetic Materials
- Engine testing
- Failure Analysis
- Flash X-Ray
- Flight termination command evaluation
- Gas generators
- Hardware-In-The-Loop (HWIL) and signal processor-In-The-Loop (SPIL) synthetic IR environments
- Heat generators
- Liquid rocket fuels development and testing
- Material and component testing
- Materials engineering
- Metallurgy
- Missile flight simulation
- Mission planning
- Navigation and global positioning system (GPS) receivers
- Optics and Laser Research
- Ordnance and Propulsion
- Photographic
- Pilot production of rocket motors, warheads, and other energetic devices
- Plume Measurement
- Polymer materials
- Pressure/thrust versus time plots, LVDTs, TVC displacements
- Propane
- Propellant evaluation
- Propulsion
- Protection against laser radiation
- Pulse Echo ultrasound measurements
- Radar cross section of rocket and air breathing engine exhaust plumes
- Radiographic Inspection
- Radome materials
- RF and IR target generation
- Rocket motors
- Small motors
- Synthesis of energetic materials as well as propellant and explosives formulation, scale-up, and analysis
- Temperature strain gauges
- Temperature, acceleration, plume signature, internal ballistics
- Thermal and structural analysis.
- Thermal evaluation of ordnance components and computer modeling of mechanical and explosive events
- Threat systems analysis and simulation
- Very large explosive detonation tests (up to 500,000 pounds)
- Video
- UV through IR broadband plume measurements
