Reviewed by: Elizabeth Hobbs
New Auburn research center addition in Huntsville reaches construction milestone
Reading time: 2 minutes
The Auburn University Applied Research Institute in Huntsville reached a construction milestone this week with a “topping off” ceremony, celebrating the final bean atop the facility’s 50,000-square-foot addition.
The new facility is a joint venture between Auburn University and the City of Huntsville’s Industrial Development Board.
About the new addition to the Auburn research facility in Huntsville
Located at 905 Mark C. Smith Drive in Cummings Research Park, the new addition is less than a mile from AUARI’s current campus on Voyager Way.
The new facility is backed by a recent $11.4 million Department of Defense contract and will establish the nation’s only university-led radiation hardening test facility.
In addition to providing rapid prototyping, the facility will focus on rad hardening — the process of ensuring the durability of microelectronics in the intense radiation environments of space.
Equipped with a multi-million-dollar cyclotron, the lab will simulate space radiation to test and evaluate vital defense systems for the Missile Defense Agency.
“This is how we have gotten to where we are. We partner with industry, with research institutions. Your success is our success. This project represents the kind of forward-thinking collaboration that keeps Huntsville growing and leading.”
Mayor Tommy Battle
AUARI executive director Jonathan Pettus said he expects the new facility to open in February.
“Radiation-hardened testing is absolutely essential to ensuring that the technologies we rely on for national defense can survive and operate in some of the harshest environments imaginable.
Unfortunately, testing capabilities along those lines are in critically short supply. This facility will not only fill a vital national capability gap, but it will also help accelerate innovation by giving defense and aerospace agencies a trusted, university-led partner right here in Huntsville.”
Jonathan Pettus, AUARI executive director
Want to stay in the know about what’s new and happening in and around Huntsville? Follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.
