The Hanford Site has deployed a drone program to determine how to best preserve the B Reactor which is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.
According to a Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management news release, the drones will assist inspections by providing images and video of the exterior of the facility.
“We needed to get eyes on the many levels of the roof to help us make the best decisions about how to protect the reactor from continued water intrusion,” Colleen French, program manager for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford, said in the release.
The full-scale plutonium production reactor has been around for almost 80 years, the release stated.
“The drone provided spectacular views that we could never have gotten without it and eliminated the hazard of putting workers on the roof to perform an inspection,” French added, according to the release.
Todd Synoground, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions senior vice president of infrastructure and site services, said the benefits of the drone deployment are twofold, the release reported.
“While the capabilities are not new technology, having a drone at Hanford creates the opportunity for infrastructure inspections throughout the site that will save time and reduce risk,” he said in the release.
