CEMIRT works mission facilities at California base

  • Published
  • By Susan Lawson
  • AFCEC Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The Pacific breeze rattles metal louvers inside a massive concrete high-voltage switching station, in contrast to an almost mesmerizing electrical humming. The dim yellow glow of sodium lamps creates a sleepy feeling, when "BAM!" a 50-pound spring claps and echoes quickly through the windowless concrete cube. The sound repeats a dozen more times over the next few minutes.

Testing and maintaining 12,000-volt circuit breakers is just one of the many specialized services offered by the high voltage team from the Civil Engineer Maintenance Inspection and Repair Team, or CEMIRT, detachment at Travis Air Force Base, California. The team has become a staple, and an important link, in the 30th Civil Engineer Squadron's electrical infrastructure maintenance plan at Vandenberg AFB, California.

In December 2015, CEMIRT performed important maintenance at Space Launch Complex 4, the site of the most recent SpaceX launch for NASA, the JASON-3. JASON-3 is a satellite designed to monitor worldwide sea levels.

Led by Tech. Sgt. Michael Martineau, a three-person CEMIRT crew spent four days performing maintenance on 22 high-voltage circuit breakers inside the 27-year-old substation. Martineau's crew ran dielectric tests, contact resistance tests, vacuum integrity tests and mechanical and electrical operations tests on the equipment. In addition, they conducted visual inspections of the metal-clad compartments and did some routine cleaning and lubrication. 

In the course of executing the testing and maintenance, Martineau and his crew also documented problems found and fixed some on the spot. The year prior, a different CEMIRT team was on site to test and certify 50 electromechanical relays. Altogether, the effort represents a thorough biannual maintenance plan and serves as a pseudo-certificate of electrical launch readiness for the complex.

This particular effort required a significant amount of planning, coordination and scheduling to satisfy the maintenance objectives while avoiding any interruption to the mission. Prior to the visit, Dennis Pakulski, 30th CES mission engineering chief, worked with SpaceX engineers to devise a sequence of events for the removal and reinstallation of circuit breakers along with outage windows most favorable to the JASON-3 flight hardware on the pad. 

"When it comes to maintenance on our 12,000-volt system, CEMIRT has absolutely been our salvation at Vandenberg," Pakulski said.

His small engineering unit represents launch readiness for the entire squadron and, at Vandenberg, that means watching over electrical transmission and distribution systems. 

"CEMIRT is better than any contractor we could hire because they are CE," Pakulski said. "We share the same blood, so they understand coming in early, working late, supporting the mission and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. And they do it well."

Using CEMIRT for maintenance and repair activities also provides a cost savings when compared to contracting the work externally.

In January 2015, a six-person team from the Travis CEMIRT shop spent two weeks replacing a lineup of 12,000-volt switches at the critical Range Operations Control Center at Vandenberg. The switchgear had suffered catastrophic failure just a few days before a launch causing a one-day slip in the countdown. That project would have cost 30th CES around $500,000 and at least two years of design, programming and contracting. CEMIRT was able to finish the project on time for approximately $145,000. The project restored confidence in badly cannibalized, aged and corroded equipment for12 space lift and missile launches while the Western Range modernized its facilities.

In 2014, CEMIRT replaced two compartmentalized switching centers and pad-mount transformers at Space Launch Complex 2, SLC-2; another aged and embattled launch pad just 2,000 feet from the Pacific shoreline. The SLC-2 projects would have cost nearly $400,000 of sustainment, restoration and modernization funds. CEMIRT was able to complete the repairs for less than $100,000 and extend the useful life of the 56-year old SLC-2 to launch the last four rockets in the Delta II inventory over the next few years.

CEMIRT has worked at all nine 30th CES substations on the installation in addition to four facility complexes with high-voltage switching stations and large power generator plants including two launch operations control centers, and two satellite operations centers. The team has also scanned nearly all of Vandenberg's 300 miles of transmission and distribution circuits, and tested more than 400 electrical relays. 

"The Travis High Voltage CEMIRT has proven to be a real force multiplier for us in many ways," said Lt Col. Ryan Novotny, 30th CES commander. "They are a key ingredient in our lengthy road to recovery." 

From 2008 to 2010, the Vandenberg AFB electrical grid suffered a debilitating series of failures resulting in drastically reduced launch readiness. These failures were the combined result of the aged infrastructure, a crippling corrosion rate, the lack of expertise and the lack of maintenance. At the height of this crisis, nearly a third of the major grid components were off-line for a mission countdown. This crisis inspired 30th Space Wing to publish the get-well plan which entailed fixing known problems, implementing a solid preventive maintenance plan, recapitalizing the system and introducing new technology among other objectives.

"Regular maintenance has been the key to success," said Larry Silva, 30th CES chief electrical engineer. "We've seen that launch readiness rate improve from 80 to 95 percent in just three years, and I largely credit that improvement to the maintenance we've been performing. The service CEMIRT provides is not only critical to our success, but it happens to be the easiest and least costly service for us to summon when needed."