[en] From December 1978 to September 1982, as part of DOE's Spent Fuel Handling and Packaging Program and Commercial Waste and Spent Fuel Packaging Program, a pressurized water reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel assembly with an initial decay heat level of approximately 1.0 kilowatt (kW) was emplaced in a concrete cask at the Engine Maintenance, Assembly and Disassembly (E-MAD) facility in Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site. Temperatures were monitored during the emplacement period to determine the thermal response of the cask, the canister, and the fuel assembly. During and following the test, the atmosphere of the canister containing the fuel assembly was sampled to determine if fission product gases had been released by the fuel assembly. This 45-month Surface Storage Cask (SSC) test was the first demonstration of interim storage of a PWR spent fuel assembly in a dry storage cask. The receipt, handling, packaging, emplacement and retrieval operations have been demonstrated as directly applicable to similar operations in federal interim storage and repository related activities. 7 references, 35 figures, 7 tables