Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Sandia technologists, who double as certified scuba divers, suit up several times a week and dive about 15 feet into Sandia’s Saturn accelerator. Saturn is primarily used to test how well electrical components survive extreme X-ray environments.
Nearly the size of an Olympic swimming pool, scuba divers are the most efficient way to keep Saturn up and running. The divers can do almost any repair underwater, whether it be replacing a damaged rod or pulling out an electrically triggered gas switch. The divers also “de-bubble” Saturn to prevent energy from getting trapped in places engineers do not want a concentration of electricity to flow.
Without the team of eight divers, Saturn’s approximately 500,000 gallons of water would have to be drained for any maintenance.
“It's a huge time saver. That's the biggest proponent of the divers,” said Sandia’s Joshua Usher, who manages Saturn and other accelerators. “If we have to drain and get the water back to resistivity every single time, we’d only get about two shots a week. At the rate we can go by leaving the water in, we're able to shoot every day.”
Joshua says there are stringent safety measures in place, including a dive coordinator with a dive rescue certification.
#Scuba #ScubaDive #SandiaLabs #Saturn
Sandia technologists, who double as certified scuba divers, suit up several times a week and dive about 15 feet into Sandia’s Saturn accelerator. Saturn is primarily used to test how well electrical components survive extreme X-ray environments.
Nearly the size of an Olympic swimming pool, scuba divers are the most efficient way to keep Saturn up and running. The divers can do almost any repair underwater, whether it be replacing a damaged rod or pulling out an electrically triggered gas switch. The divers also “de-bubble” Saturn to prevent energy from getting trapped in places engineers do not want a concentration of electricity to flow.
Without the team of eight divers, Saturn’s approximately 500,000 gallons of water would have to be drained for any maintenance.
“It's a huge time saver. That's the biggest proponent of the divers,” said Sandia’s Joshua Usher, who manages Saturn and other accelerators. “If we have to drain and get the water back to resistivity every single time, we’d only get about two shots a week. At the rate we can go by leaving the water in, we're able to shoot every day.”
Joshua says there are stringent safety measures in place, including a dive coordinator with a dive rescue certification.
#Scuba #ScubaDive #SandiaLabs #Saturn
