Hermes A-1 Rocket test at White Sands, New Mexico. The Hermes A-1 used engines tested in Malta Malta Test Station, located in

Malta, New York Malta is a town in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The town is in the central part of the county and is south of Saratoga Springs. The population was 17,130 as of the 2020 census. Malta, along with Stillwater, is home to the Luthe ...

, is a former

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

fuel and explosives testing facility. It was established in 1945 and used to test rocket engines for the US Army's " Project Hermes", new fuels and explosives. It has also been used for atomic energy research. Malta test station has been used by various government agencies including the

US Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

, National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), the

US Department of Energy US or Us most often refers to: * Us (pronoun), ''Us'' (pronoun), the objective case of the English first-person plural pronoun ''we'' * US, an abbreviation for the United States US, U.S., Us, us, or u.s. may also refer to: Arts and entertainme ...

, and the

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), established in 1975, is a New York State public-benefit corporation, located in Albany, New York, with regional offices in New York City, Buffalo, and West Valley. NYSERDA ...

(NYSERDA), it was operated by

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

until 1972 when the Wright-Malta Corporation took over occupation and continued to test fuels and explosives for the US military and the US Department of Energy until 2005. The Wright Malta Corporation also worked on noise suppression systems, fuel cells, assisted technologically oriented start up businesses, waste-to-energy technology, liquid fuel propellants, and a number of other emerging technologies related to defense, energy, and product testing. The Malta Test Station was the site of a serious industrial accident in May 2004. The site and surrounding area has since been transformed into the

Luther Forest Technology Campus The Luther Forest Technology Campus or LFTC is a 1,414-acre (573 hectares) site in the towns of Malta and Stillwater, New York, specifically designed for semiconductor and nanotechnology manufacturing and other innovative technologies. The site h ...

, home to a new chip fabrication plant owned by

GlobalFoundries GlobalFoundries Inc. is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company located in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD in March 2009, the ...

. "Project Hermes" is commemorated by Hermes Road, one of the main access roads to the Technology Campus. It was listed as a

Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...

site in 1987 and removed from the list following cleanup in 1999. It is being monitored by the US Environmental Protection agency to ensure that it is safe from possible chemical contamination.

Gallery

Test gantry.jpg, Rocket engine test gantry at old Malta Test Station in Malta, NY in 2013. This place was the actual birthplace of the United States' Space & Missile programs not to mention the countless tests done at this site by the military on just explosives alone. File:Observation windows.jpg, blast window in reinforced concrete bunker used to observe early rocket and explosive tests at site. File:Ladder going into bunker.jpg, ladder going into reinforced underground bunker that housed equipment and electrical and sensor wiring conduits leading out to gantry. File:Blast pit.jpg, reinforced concrete exhaust/blast pit that directed rocket blasts "out and away" from test gantry. "very overgrown and has appx. 4-5 feet of stagnant standing water"

References

Research installations of the United States Army Weapons test sites Buildings and structures in Saratoga County, New York Military Superfund sites Superfund sites in New York (state) 1945 establishments in New York (state) {{US-Army-stub

Gallery

See also

References