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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Solid Waste Clean Up Project Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In June 2009, Proxtronics Logistics, a division of Proxtronics, Inc. was awarded a task order to clean up solid waste at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. The work took place on the main campus at GSFC and several satellite locations. The total area occupied by NASA in Greenbelt is 1,270 acres.

Under this task order, Proxtronics was responsible for the removal and disposition of surplus items. The items removed included: trucks, trailers, satellite carriers, microwave towers, fuel storage tanks and several permanent and temporary building structures. Proxtronics selected the Rigging Division of A&A Transfer, Inc. as its partner for this project. Proxtronics Project Manager, Ken Hills, stated, “I have worked extensively with A&A Transfer for more than twenty years and there was no hesitation in selecting them for this project.”

While the main part of the project was the removal of surplus trailers and metal frame structures along the “Swamp Road” and on the main campus, the event generating the most interest was the removal of the “Screaming Yellow Zonker.” The “Zonker” was a large, self-propelled machine that was designed (in 1962) to remove and replace the door on a centrifuge. It was approximately twenty feet wide and twenty feet tall. It weighed fifty-eight thousand pounds and had a top speed of three miles per hour. When its “services” were no longer required, the “Zonker” was retired. Efforts to find a new home for the Zonker were unsuccessful and it was dismantled and the components were recycled.

This project was successfully completed in July 2009. In total, approximately 677 thousand pounds of material (steel, iron, aluminum, wood and other items) were removed, scrapped or recycled.

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or contact:
Chris Davis
Proxtronics Inc.
(703) 440-2184