Town of Salina (WSYR-TV) - Lockheed Martin will unveil a nearly 10,000 square-foot structure for testing radar systems Thursday.
The new facility located in the Town of Salina cost $16 million to build, but will give the company one of the world's most advanced facilities of its kind.
The workspace is state of the art, with a room standing 80 feet tall with spiked foam walls.
Some might say the interior looks space age - which is probably the right type of environment considering the kinds of systems that will be tested in the new structure.
Radars are being developed in central New York for the Air Force, Marine Corps and other military programs. Previously, the systems built in our area would have to be sent out for testing; that won't be the case any more.
Engineering Manager Jeff Marier says it's something the folks who work at the plant are very excited about. "It lets us play and do things we could never do here before, said Marier." He says the new space is the only facility of its type and allows the company to do as much analysis as they want. "Before we had to do it by analysis because we didn't have a facility like this; now we can do it by testing and that's the way we like to do things."
Building the new facility was no simple task. The walls are made up of 55,000 cones, each one placed by hand by a crew of about six people.
We're told it took them several couple of months to finish the job.
There have been similar testing chambers like this one built before, but none ever as big.
