The U. K. Ministry of Defence has prepared a new electromagnetic launch facility at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) range, in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. The facility includes a 2 km instrumented range to assess the performance of the gudprojectile system. The pulsed power system stores over 32 MJ at 11 kV in 29 independently-triggerable capacitor bank modules. This design provides considerable flexibility in operating parameters, to accommodate EM and ET guns and a broad range of projectile types and masses. The pulsed power system is specifically designed to be very fault tolerant, to assure high availability. The facility will begin operation using an electromagnetic rail gun of 90 mm bore, with an accelerating length of 7 m. I. FACILITY CHARACTEXISTICS The Kirkcudbright Electromagnetic Launch Facility was developed through an effort of the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Defense Department , as a part of their combined efforts under a Memorandum of Understanding entitled "Joint Development of Electromagnetic Launch Technology for Tactical Applications." The facility consists of a gun system building, which contains a 90 mm rail gun (other guns may also be installed), a 32.2 MJ capacitorbased pulsed power system, controls, a data acquisition system, an instrumented 2 km range including a ballistic tunnel and multiple targets along the range, and a 100 m range with a reinforced stop butt. Marconi Radar and Control Systems was the prime contractor to the UK Ministry of Defence for this program. Physics Intemational was responsible for the design and implementation of the pulsed power system. Other key subcontractors to Marconi were AngloHolt (UK) and Strachan and Henshaw (UK). The U. S . Government provided the baseline gun barrel, high-energy capacitors, high-voltage power supply, pulsed power data acquisition system, and high-current fuses. Sparta was responsible for the design and implementation of the barrel and p-accelerator as well as the interfaces between the gun and the output cables from the pulsed power system. The main building, shown in the photograph of Figure 1, is a standard shell, specially adapted for housing the Pulsed Power System and Launcher. The foundations were strengthened with 6% steel reinforcing bars and an extensive, low-resistance building ground system was installed. Two gun mount areas have been provided, using a rawl-nut grid (an extensive grid of threaded inserts imbedded in the floor) to allow flexibility in mounting the guns. Massive foundations (240 metric tons of concrete and 7 metric tons of steel reinforcing) have been installed, to control recoil forces. The layout of the interior of the building is shown in Figure 2. Figure 1. Kirkcudbright Electromagnetic Launch Facility. Capacitor Bank k d Instrumentatim Rawlnut Grid Mcdules / Figure 2. Floorplan Layout The control room, located at the opposite end of the building, relative to the gun mounts, is a heavily reinforced and shielded room, to assure personnel safety and to minimize electrical noise in the room. A screened room within the control room provides a very low-noise environment for the data acquisition systems. A 750 kVA, 415 V, 50 Hz diesel generator set, the main power source for the PPS, is located in the small building adjacent to the main building. The diesel generator can also provide general facility power if necessary. The two gun mount areas are arranged to fixe onto two separate ranges. One is aimed parallel to the building axis, through the heavily reinforced concrete ballistic tunnel (3 m x 3 m cross-section, 20 m long) and onto the 2 km range. The other fixing position is