Los Alamos Technical Associates (LATA), a New Mexico-based Department of Energy contractor, turns 50 on Jan. 1, the woman-owned small business announced this week.
Founded in 1976, the company headquartered in Albuquerque now provides services to not only DOE and the Department of Defense but to other agencies including Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of State.
It has been involved with DOE weapons complex sites including Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, Rocky Flats in Colorado, the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and Idaho National Laboratory. LATA is also a small business teaming contractor to Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors at the Waste isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The president, CEO and top shareholder is Robin Beard.
As it has for major events in the past, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will make low-altitude helicopter flights over the Las Vegas Strip area leading up to New Year’s Eve celebrations in the desert city.
The flights by NNSA’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) Aerial Measuring System aircraft will measure expected background radiation as part of standard preparations to protect public health and safety during the event, NNSA said in a Monday Dec. 22 press release. The flights start Monday, Dec. 29, and run through Wednesday, Dec. 31, NNSA said in the release.
NNSA has done such helicopter monitoring in the past for events ranging from large public protests to Super Bowls.
A Bechtel National company has landed a Department of Defense contract modification worth nearly $928 million for naval nuclear propulsion components, the Pentagon said last week.
Bechtel Plant Machinery., Monroeville, Pa., was awarded the modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract, according to a Dec. 19 summary of contract news from the Pentagon.
About two-thirds of the work will be done at Monroeville and the rest at Schenectady, N.Y., according to the Pentagon contract notice.
The work, which should be finished by September 2035, was not competitively bid, the Pentagon said in the notice, citing “only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.”
Orano has signed with Perpetual Atomics to source Americium-241 from spent nuclear fuel recycling to create space-based power systems.
According to Orano’s Dec. 19 press release, the supply of Americium-241 will be sourced from Orano’s La Hague fuel processing site in France. Perpetual Atomics plans to develop a radioisotope power system, built on Americium-241, to power space crafts.
The power systems will use heat generated from the decay of radioisotopes, such as Americium-241, to keep a spacecraft operationally warm or convert into electricity to power pivotal energy systems, according to the release.
The husband-and-wife team at the helm of Longenecker & Associates (L&A) have pledged to donate $500,000 over time to the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas.
Longenecker & Associates said in a Dec. 9 press release that L&A CEO John Longenecker and Founder/Board Chair Bonnie Longenecker have made an immediate grant of $250,000 to the museum and the rest will be donated in future years.
According to its website, the Atomic Museum “is a national science, history and educational institution that tells the story of America’s nuclear weapons testing program at the Nevada Test Site [now known as the Department of Energy’s Nevada Nuclear Security Site].” John Longenecker currently chairs the museum’s board of trustees. Longenecker & Associates is being bought by Florida-based Geosyntec, the companies announced last week.