SwRI-Led LUCY Mission Shows Dinkinesh Asteroid is a Binary

New images captured by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft confirmed that the small main belt asteroid Dinkinesh is a binary, two asteroids that orbit a common center of mass. The SwRI-led mission will now fly by 11 asteroids in its 12-year mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

Oct 18, 2023

SwRI Dr. Alan Stern Will Conduct Research in Space

Dr. Alan Stern, planetary scientist and associate vice president of Southwest Research Institute’s Space Science Division, will fly aboard the Virgin Galactic commercial spaceship VSS Unity on a suborbital space mission.

Oct 18, 2023

New Model Explains Precious Metals in Earth's Mangle

SwRI's Dr. Simone Marchi collaborated on a new study finding the first geophysically plausible scenario to explain the abundance of certain precious metals in the Earth's malntle.

Oct 9, 2023

NASA Selects SwRI to Lead Lunar Lander Instrument Suite

NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute to lead a million lunar lander/rover instrument suite, Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer, or DIMPLE, designed to understand if the Moon has been volcanically active in the geologically recent past.

Jul 21, 2023

SwRI-Led Team Finds Ancient Impacts Could Have Fueled Venus Volcanism

A SwRI-led team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain it's youthful surface.

Jul 20, 2023

SwRI to Lead NASA/SSERVI Center for Lunar Origin and Evoloution

SwRI has entered into a five-year, .5-million cooperative agreement with NASA to lead the Center for Lunar Origin and Evolution (CLOE).

May 25, 2023

SwRI-Led Team Successfully Observes Australian Eclipse

SwRI led a team in the unique Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse (CATE) experiment to image the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, during a short solar eclipse on the opposite side of the Earth

May 2, 2023

SwRI-Developed Instrument Delivered for Lunar Lander Mission

SwRI recently delivered the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) to Firefly Aerospace in Cedar Park, Texas, for integration into the Blue Ghost lunar lander scheduled to arrive at the Moon in 2024.

May 2, 2023

SwRI,JPL Study Suggests Explanation for Unusual Radar Signatures of Icy Satellites

A study co-authored by SwRI Senior Research Scientist Dr. Jason Hofgartner explains the unusual radar signatures of icy satellites orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.

May 2, 2023

SwRI Models Explain Canyons on Pluto Moon

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountered the Pluto-Charon system, the Southwest Research Institute-led science team discovered interesting, geologically active objects instead of the inert icy orbs previously envisioned.

Feb 12, 2023

SwRI Investigations Reveal More Evidence that Mimas is a Stealth Ocean World

SwRI scientist discovered surprising evidence that Satern's smallest, innermost moon could support a liquid internal ocean.

Feb 12, 2023

SwRI-Led LUCY Team Announces New Asteroid Target

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will add another asteroid encounter to its 4-billion-mile journey.

Jan 30, 2023

Studying the Solar System through Research and Exploration

Southwest Research Institute's Solar System Science & Exploration Division has over 100 employees and is located in the Exeter Building at 11th and Walnut in downtown Boulder, Colorado.

Areas of research and development:

Space Studies
Planetary Physics
Planetary Atmospheres and Surfaces
Lunar Origin and Evolution
Solar Physics
Solar System Dynamics
Astronomy
Computer Systems
Space Operations
Space Technologies
Mission Operations

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), based in San Antonio, Texas, is an independent, nonprofit, applied engineering and physical science research and development organization with over 3000 employees. The Solar System Science & Exploration Division's goals are excellence in space research and the expansion and deepening of SwRI's space research efforts.

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