Sandia National Laboratories

The Sandia National Laboratories (SNL ) is a research and development facility of the U.S. Department of Energy, with two locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Livermore, California. The main task consists in developing, manufacturing and testing of non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons. In addition, the SNL developed suborbital sounding rockets like the Strypi and STARS, which are used for system testing of ballistic weapons and missile defense systems.

In the SNL are

• The Supercomputer ASCI Red and Red Storm,
• Z- engine, the largest X-ray source in the world.

SNL also operates the rocket launch site Kauai Test Facility on the island of Kauai ( Hawaii island chain ).