A new 3-story addition to Burlington Labs was constructed (known as the new building). Between it and the old building, a reactor building was constructed, along with a loading dock and walkway that bridged the old and new buildings. The reactor building housed the 1 MW pool nuclear reactor manufactured by AMF and known as the "Pulstar" reactor. It was named for its pulsing ability, by which it can safely become super prompt critical and produce very short pulses of radiation. The reactor became operational August 25, 1972, replacing the previous series. The initial costs were reported to be 1.5 M US$.