The Eagle has landed for CBP
The verb “to VACIS” in U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s lexicon has become synonymous with conducting container x-ray scans at ports of entry. That’s because the Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System (VACIS) produced by Science Applications International Corp. is the only system procured by CBP in mass quantities.
CBP has deployed about 165 mobile, truck-mounted gamma-ray systems since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, as well as some semi-fixed systems.
Now the border protection agency is adding another cargo scanning system to its arsenal. CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner publicly unveiled the Eagle mobile sea container x-ray system, a more powerful system that the agency says can penetrate more than a foot of steel, during a ceremony at the Port of Baltimore.
Baltimore is the second port in the nation to receive the Eagle non-intrusive inspection system. The system, made by Hawthorne, Calif.-based Rapiscan Systems, has been in operation at the Seagirt Terminal in Baltimore since December. Another system has been checking the contents of containers at the Port of Savannah since October, according to a CBP news release. Both units are modified versions of a prototype Eagle system purchased and deployed at the Port of Miami in February 2001.
CBP said the $6 million Eagle system can inspect a container in about one minute. Five containers at a time are laid in a line and the arch-like unit slowly rolls over them. X-rays beams are emitted from one side and collected by a detector array on the other and the electronic signals processed by a computer to create a high-resolution image. Although the Eagle can move within a self-contained zone, it cannot be moved between terminals and ports. It requires a large footprint that includes a radiation safety zone and a concrete pad to support its weight.
The Eagle was originally produced by a company called Advanced Research and Applications Corp. (ARACOR), which Rapiscan acquired last year. CBP will evaluate the performance of the system under daily conditions before deciding to install more machines at other ports, said Neil Shannon, CBP’s assistant port director for Baltimore, in an interview published in the April issue of the port’s magazine.