Atomic Weapons Establishment

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Aerial view of AWE Aldermaston

Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), previously Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE), is a public company responsible for the development, construction, maintenance and decommissioning of UK nuclear weapons . This is where the British nuclear weapons, the free-fall bomb WE.177 and warheads for submarine-based ballistic missiles Polaris and Trident come from . The head office is at Aldermaston , the second location is at Burghfield . At the Blacknest site, seismic monitoring of nuclear weapons tests is also carried out.

history

AWRE was created in 1950 on the former RAF Aldermaston military airfield . In 1987 the Royal Ordnance locations Cardiff and Burghfield merged with the AWRE locations Aldermaston and Foulness to form AWE. The Cardiff and Foulness sites were closed after the end of the Cold War. Accordingly, the number of employees decreased from 6,400 in 1993 to 4,500 in 2013.

In 1993 the private consortium Hunting-BRAE ( Hunting Engineering , Brown & Root and AEA Technology ) took over the operational management of AWE. After the contract expired in 2000, a new contract was concluded with the consortium AWE plc ( British Nuclear Fuels , Lockheed Martin and Serco ) for a term of 25 years . British Nuclear Fuels sold its shares to Jacobs Engineering Group in 2009 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Milne in: The Long Roads to Peace: Proceedings of the Forthy-Eighth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs; Jurica, Mexico, September 29 - October 4, 1998 , World Scientific Publishing, 2001, ISBN 9812810218 , page 145 [1]
  2. ↑ James Arbuthnot: The future of the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent , The Stationery Office, 2006, ISBN 0215031784 , p. 32 [2]
  3. ↑ James Delgado: Nuclear Dawn: The Atomic Bomb, from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War, Osprey Publishing, 2011, ISBN 178096238X , p. 199 [3]
  4. ↑ Matthew Fautley, James Garon: Essex Coastline , publishing Matthew Fautley, 2004, ISBN 0954801008 , page 200 [4]
  5. ↑ Tom Milne in: The Long Roads to Peace: Proceedings of the Forthy-Eighth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs; Jurica, Mexico, September 29 - October 4, 1998 , World Scientific Publishing House, 2001, ISBN 9812810218 , page 145 [5]
  6. ↑ Tom Milne in: The Long Roads to Peace: Proceedings of the Forthy-Eighth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs; Jurica, Mexico, September 29 - October 4, 1998 , World Scientific Publishing House, 2001, ISBN 9812810218 , page 145 [6]
  7. ↑ AWE about itself archive link ( Memento from August 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Health and Safety Executive : LICENSING OF THE AWE SITES TO HUNTING BRAE Ltd
  9. ↑ Armin Krishnan: War As Business: Technological Change and Military Service Contracting , Ashgate Publishing, 2013, ISBN 1409498395 , pp. 78–79 [7]
  10. ↑ Jacobs Engineering Group, company history: Archive link ( Memento from July 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 10.1 ″  N , 1 ° 8 ′ 26.6 ″  W.