New cleanroom suite for satellite testing - Oxfordshire

Willmott Dixon Construction contracted Clean Room Construction to deliver a space-age cleanroom facility at a new space test facility in Oxfordshire for RAL Space.

The facility on the Harwell Campus, which is the nerve centre of the UK's space industry, is an extension to an existing laboratory and has been designed and built for RAL Space - the space department of the Science Technology Facilities Council - to house the UK's largest and most sophisticated space design, production and research facilities.

CRC worked with Willmott Dixon to deliver a 1,372 sq.m facility comprising 15 cleanrooms (Class 5 and 6) for testing satellites for use in future space missions. Five changing areas have also been created and the site includes the UK's largest thermal vacuum calibration facility.

The project represents one of the tallest cleanroom facilities ever built by CRC, with some of the ceilings exceeding 12m in height to accommodate the space-age equipment. The project also incorporated cleanrooms with walk-on and suspended ceilings and a requirement for self-supporting modular wall panels including 6.5m by 6m roller door access.

Plasteurop partitioning, fan filter units, flush electrical and gas services provision, oxygen depletion alarms, interlocking systems for doors, lasers and window blinds and localised laminar flow formed part of the complex specification. Three of the cleanrooms have a black finish to enable optical testing and laser alignment projects to take place within the rooms.

CRC was also responsible for the testing, validation and commissioning of the facilities.

Ral Space Cleanroom

CRC is ready to quote your next project

Contact Us