NEVADA TEST SITE

The eighth shot in the Summer 1957 Nuclear Test Series in Nevada is scheduled for firing at 6:30 a.m. PDT Wednsday, July 17, 1957. Code name for the shot is Owens. The device, designed by Livermore Laboratory, will be suspended from a balloon 67 feet in diameter, at a height of 500 feet above Area 9 in Yucca Flat, about 14 miles north of the Control Point. The yield is expected to be below nominal.

There will be 50 experiments on the sequence timer. Several Civil Effects experiments will be conducted as a continuation of previously-announced projects. There will be 17 Military Effects projects embracing a number of associated experiments. There will be no animals used in connection with this shot.

A total of 100 military observers will view the detonation. The Army Signal Corps will continue its tests of tracking the radioactive cloud with radar sets located at varying distances from groung zero. Purpose of the tests is to determine the feasibility of special and standardized Army radar equipment for cloud tracking use. Various types of Army Ordnance equipment will be subjected to blast, heat and radiation effects in an Ordnance test. Radar equipment, together with sound, flash and meteorological equipment and observation posts will be in position to determine the organization, equipment, and weather data required by Army units to determine the yield of atomic devices and to predict and monitor radiological fallout.