Low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites generate huge amounts of data daily and getting this data back to Earth in a timely, error-free manner is currently challenging and costly. MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) technology revolutionizes what is possible in this area. TBIRD technology enables dramatic increases in the achievable data volume delivered from LEO to…
SwRI receives $7.2 million contract to test AI in air taxi design project
Southwest Research Institute has received a four-year, $7,239,342 contract from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) to develop air taxi technology to test the design capabilities of artificial intelligence-augmented design systems. The project is part of DARPA’s Symbiotic Design for Cyber Physical Systems program. Air taxis are short-range electric aircraft…
Dartmouth Engineering professor awarded $400K NSF grant to conduct research on Space Station
Dartmouth Engineering Professor Zi Chen has received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), to lead a three-year research project on the International Space Station (ISS). Chen’s proposal was one of just three selected from institutions across the country as…
LaserNetUS High-Power Laser Consortium, including Berkeley Lab, receives $18M from the U.S. DOE
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy established LaserNetUS, a network of facilities operating ultrapowerful lasers. Organized and funded through DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES), the new network was created to provide vastly improved access to unique lasers for researchers, and to help restore the U.S.’s once-dominant position in high-intensity laser research. Now,…
SwRI awarded $12 million U.S. Air Force contract for B-1B system redesign
The U.S. Air Force awarded Southwest Research Institute a $12 million contract to redesign a critical B-1B Lancer system to help extend the aircraft’s service life. The B-1B is a long-range, supersonic bomber, which has served the Air Force since 1986. SwRI engineers will redesign the aircraft’s Fuel Center of Gravity Management System (FCGMS), which…
Sensors of world’s largest digital camera snap first 3,200-megapixel images at SLAC
Crews at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have taken the first 3,200-megapixel digital photos – the largest ever taken in a single shot – with an extraordinary array of imaging sensors that will become the heart and soul of the future camera of Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The images are so large that…
SwRI awarded NASA contract to develop high-latitude mission to image the Sun’s poles
A Southwest Research Institute proposal to study the Sun’s poles — considered among the last unexplored regions of the solar system — is one of five science investigations selected as a possible future NASA mission. Dr. Don Hassler, a program director at SwRI, is the principal investigator for Solaris. This proposed solar polar Medium-Class Explorers…
Global R&D Funding Forecast update: Aerospace and defense R&D
Aerospace and defense R&D The commercial airline industry — both suppliers and operators — has been one of the hardest hit industries by the COVID-19 pandemic and is likely to be one of the longest affected industries as well. Boeing, Airbus and General Electric have seen their business models go from years-long production backlogs to…
Upcoming space mission to test Purdue-developed drag sail pulling rocket back to Earth
SwRI, UTSA researchers work to better understand hypersonic flight environments
Researchers from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) are working to develop unobtrusive diagnostics for hypersonic flight testing. The project led by Dr. Nicholas J. Mueschke of SwRI’s Mechanical Engineering Division and Dr. Christopher Combs of UTSA’s College of Engineering is supported by a $125,000 grant from the…
Purdue scientist plays a critical role in 2020 NASA Mars rover mission
SwRI awarded contract to develop solar wind plasma sensor
A joint NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) team has awarded Southwest Research Institute a contract to develop the Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS) for a satellite mission dedicated to tracking space weather. SWiPS will measure the properties of solar wind ions originating from the Sun, including the very fast ions associated with coronal mass…
Ironhand wins NASA Commercial Invention of the Year award
Establishing a sustainable presence on the Moon, preparing for crewed missions to Mars, exploring the cosmos, and innovating how society travels by air requires new technologies and software. Each year, through its Inventions and Contributions Board, NASA recognizes the efforts of its engineers, software developers and collaborative partners by awarding Invention of the Year and…
NASA awards SwRI $3 million to develop lunar LASVEGAS
NASA has awarded Southwest Research Institute $3 million to develop a lunar version of its Laser Absorption Spectrometer for Volatiles and Evolved Gas (LASVEGAS) instrument. This spectrometer can precisely measure the volatile compounds present in planetary atmospheres and surfaces — critical information for space science and exploration. “LASVEGAS is about half the size of a…
SwRI awarded $12.8 million to develop space weather instrument
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently awarded Southwest Research Institute a $12,862,664 contract to develop a magnetometer for a satellite mission dedicated to tracking space weather. The magnetometer is part of the satellite’s solar wind instrument suite, which measures the characteristics of the solar wind plasma that interact with the Earth’s…
Looking up from the mountaintop: Q&A with a telescope instrument’s lead observer
Feature Story Glenn Roberts Jr. It’s one thing to design, assemble, and install a next-generation telescope instrument. It’s another to bring it to life. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), installed on the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, contains more than half a million parts in one of its central…
Next-gen suborbital space research and education conference to be held March 2-4
Since its debut in 2010, the Next-generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) has rapidly become the largest gathering of suborbital researchers and educators in the world, providing an invaluable forum for information, discussion, coordination and networking in this community. NSRC-2020, to be held at the Omni Interlocken hotel in Broomfield, CO, March 2-4, will bring together…
SwRI delivers ultraviolet instrument for ESA’s Jupiter mission
An ultraviolet spectrograph (UVS) designed and built by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is the first scientific instrument to be delivered for integration onto the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft. Scheduled to launch in 2022 and arrive at Jupiter in 2030, JUICE will spend at least three years making detailed observations in…
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi’s Lone Star, NASA project nominated for national aerospace achievement award
The National Aeronautic Association announced today that work being done by the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Lone Star UAS Center of Excellence & Innovation and NASA is among nine aviation and space achievements that will compete for the 2019 Robert J. Collier Trophy for excellence in aeronautics and astronautics in America. “We were flattered when…
A new approach to making airplane parts, minus the massive infrastructure
A modern airplane’s fuselage is made from multiple sheets of different composite materials, like so many layers in a phyllo-dough pastry. Once these layers are stacked and molded into the shape of a fuselage, the structures are wheeled into warehouse-sized ovens and autoclaves, where the layers fuse together to form a resilient, aerodynamic shell. Now…
Technology to use hot air balloons for rocket launches competes in a startup battlefield
Leo Aerospace has taken to the technology battlefield to receive worldwide attention for its technology, Members of the Leo team took the stage in early October at TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield in California. Michael Hepfer, Dane Rudy, Drew Sherman, Bryce Prior and Abishek Murali started Leo while students in Purdue’s College of Engineering. The event is an…
Fast and Furious: Detection of Powerful Winds Driven by a Supermassive Black Hole
Researchers Gain Greater Insight into Bacteria Aboard the ISS
Scientists are working to better understand how—and which—bacteria thrive aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Researchers from the University of Montreal and McGill University created a new genomic methodology that can analyze how a bacterial ecosystem works under the harsh environments aboard the ISS. The novel method revealed a complex bacterial ecosystem at work…
New Analysis Shows the Moon Shrinking
Oldest Meteorite Collection on Earth found in one of the driest places
Earth is bombarded every year by rocky debris, but the rate of incoming meteorites can change over time. Finding enough meteorites scattered on the planet’s surface can be challenging, especially if you are interested in reconstructing how frequently they land. Now, researchers have uncovered a wealth of well-preserved meteorites that allowed them to reconstruct the…