SSFL Area II – Gallery A – EnviroReporter.com

SSFL Area II includes the rocket test stands at the Alpha Area and Bravo Area, seen below. Operational with three test stands beginning in 1955, Alpha supported the first manned orbital flight of Atlas-Mercury in 1962. Both Alpha and Bravo areas are heavily polluted as are some of the surrounding structures including the Hazardous Waste Storage Tank Area, Waste Coolant Tank, Storable Propellant Area, and the Alfa/Bravo Fuel Farm. Boeing and NASA are responsible for the cleanup of contamination from volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), petroleum hydrocarbons, formaldehyde, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals, dioxins and furans. The 188 acre area where Alpha and Bravo facilities are situated is at the top of the Los Angeles River watershed.

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ALFA test stands

ALFA test stand 1956 hot fire

The stands were initially constructed to conduct engine testing in support of the Navaho, Thor, RS-27 and Atlas programs. Later came Jupiter and Delta.

ALFA hot fire circa 1960s

The MA-3 rocket's first launch was October 11, 1960 and last launch March 24, 1995.

ALFA 1 was activated in July 1955 and ignited over 1,080 rocket ignitions. ALFA 2 conducted 370 tests after coming online a month earlier.

In November 1955, ALFA 3 was activated and fired 1,385 rocket tests.

Over 2,835 rocket engine ignitions took place at Alpha Area out of the over 30,000 tests performed in the history of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

The facilities were initially constructed to conduct engine testing for the Navaho, Thor, RS-27 and Atlas programs.

Over the years, the stands have been continuously modified and modernized, and are currently being used for ongoing reliability & verification testing of the Delta launch vehicle RS-27A engine.

The RS-27, proven at Alfa Area, has achieved 100% reliability powering the Delta Program launch vehicles, remarkable accomplishment. In July 2004, the 200th RS-27 launch occurred with NASA’s Aura spacecraft aboard.

RS 27 engine booster gimbal

ALPHA 3 test stand 1988 engine hot fire

RS 27 engine

BRAVO 2 was activated in April 1956 and conducted over 209 tests while BRAVO I and BRAVO III began operating the following August. Though records aren't available for BRAVO III's testing quantity, BRAVO I is known to have conducted over 489 rocket engine ignitions.

The Bravo test area was initially constructed for testing of Atlas engines but it was modified shortly after construction to perform testing of large components and eventually was involved in the testing and development of the Thor, F-1 engine predecessor, F-1 engine components, and Delta vernier engines.

Its most significant event was perhaps the test of F-1 engine turbopumps and several F-1 thrust chamber ignition tests. Bravo was later modified for turbopump and vernier engine testing for the RS-27 and Atlas programs.

ALFA Area Test Crew Circa 1970s

ALFA test stand in 1993

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin at Bravo III

In 1999, a UCLA School of Public Health study revealed that workers exposed to hydrazine, over 2 million pounds of which was used during rocket tests, had higher rates of some cancers. The grim news was reported in the April 21, 1999 edition of an LA Weekly article entitled “UCLA Study Burns Rocketdyne – Cancer rates elevated among space-lab workers,” by EnviroReporter.com’s Michael Collins:

UCLA found that Rocketdyne workers who had high hydrazine exposures were about twice as likely as other Rocketdyne employees who worked at the site to die from lung and other cancers. The study shows that 44 in 1,053 workers on “the Hill,” who had concentrated contact with the compound, had died from lung cancer. That rate was twice as high as for the employees who had minor or no contact with the chemical, which has been found to be carcinogenic in lab animals and a “possible carcinogen” to humans.

Excessive deaths from cancers of the kidney, bladder, blood and lymphatic system were also observed, although the lung-cancer numbers were the most startling. The jeopardy of dying from one of these cancers was also highest among those who worked in the high-exposure positions during the 1960s, when Rocketdyne’s use of hydrazine was at its peak. But considering the various amounts of different types of toxic slop used on the test- stands, UCLA couldn’t determine absolutely that hydrazine was the cancer culprit.