Advena
{{Short description|South African nuclear weapons production facility}}
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Advena is a South African nuclear weapons production facility, having been transferred in 1979 from the Pelindaba nuclear research center to the state-owned Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor), was later developed as the Kentron Circle facility. This facility, built in 1980, and located {{cvt|20|km}} west of Pretoria, was subsequently renamed Advena.
Nuclear family
At Pelindaba, Nuclear weapons of the gun-type design were developed. Armscor established a production line there in 1981 and produced at least one nuclear device of a 10-18 kilotons yield each year.
Extended family
Advena Central Laboratories were constructed in the mid-1980s to extend South Africa's nuclear capabilities from gun-type weapons to inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) delivery platforms. Work to produce advanced warhead designs was also developed. Working with Israel at Advena, a 2000 km-range missile – based on the Jericho II ICBM – was designed and tested. The construction of Advena was completed at the same time as South Africa's nuclear program was terminated in the lead-up to Nelson Mandela's election in 1994.
See also
External links
- [http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/rsa/advena.htm Advena/Kentron Circle]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20000816093148/http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/pa/News/071197.html Blast from the past: Lab scientists receive vindication]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=VAwAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA37 "South Africa and the affordable bomb,"] David Albright, [http://www.thebulletin.org Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists], July 1994.
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Category:Military installations of South Africa
Category:Nuclear weapons of South Africa
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