Big Ideas Lab Podcast takes on National Ignition Facility sustainment

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is home to the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world’s largest and most energetic laser system— and the only lab on earth where fusion ignition has been achieved and repeated. The latest episode of the Big Ideas podcast tackles the work necessary to keep such a facility running. Listen on Apple or Spotify.

NIF was designed and constructed beginning in the mid-1990s as a key element of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain the reliability, security and safety of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without full-scale testing.

Through thousands of experiments and 15 years of continuous operations, NIF has delivered on its mission with remarkable precision and reliability. It has an experimental success rate of more than 95 percent and fewer than 30 days of unplanned downtime.

But time takes its toll, even on the most finely tuned instruments. While NIF is a marvel of science and engineering, it’s an aging marvel. Routine maintenance can’t keep up with the accumulating deferred maintenance, obsolescence and aging.

Preserving NIF’s extraordinary capabilities is no small undertaking. In a facility the size of three football fields with 192 beamlines, every activity is complex. But the team at LLNL is already at work on 30 large-scale projects: the NIF Sustainment Plan.

Go behind the scenes of these remarkable endeavors in the latest episode of the Big Ideas Lab Podcast. You’ll hear about the challenges, opportunities and innovations from a team of experts:

• NIF Director Gordon Brunton
• NIF Sustainment Project Manager Jeff Horner
• Co-Program Director for Laser Science and Systems Engineering Jean-Michel Di Nicola
• Deputy Group Leader for Laser Science Systems Engineering Larry Pelz

If you’re new to the Big Ideas Lab podcast, give a listen to the two-part series on fusion ignition (Oct. 15, 2024 and Oct. 22, 2024) and the Stockpile Modernization episode (Dec. 10, 2024) to learn more about NIF and stockpile stewardship. Listen on Apple or Spotify.