
Space Science Department
The Space Science Department’s research activities focus principally on
understanding the behavior of electrically charged particles (plasmas) and
electromagnetic fields at the Sun, in planetary magnetospheres and
interplanetary space, and at the heliosphere’s interface with the local
interstellar medium. The scope of the department’s research program extends from
the Sun to the very edge of the solar system, where, some 8 billion miles from
Earth, the outflow of electrically charged particles from the Sun (the solar
wind) encounters the Local Interstellar Medium.
The design and development of instrumentation for the exploration of the
terrestrial, planetary, and interplanetary space environments is one of the
Department’s major areas of activity. SwRI has provided in-situ and
remote-sensing instruments for both NASA and European space missions, including
the Cassini Saturn Orbiter, Deep Space 1, IMAGE, Mars Express, Rosetta, Venus
Express, New Horizons, TWINS, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Juno, and the
Mars Science Laboratory and is currently building the hot plasma composition
analyzers for NASA’s four-spacecraft Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission and
the Strofio neutral mass spectrometer for the European Space Agency’s
BepiColombo mission to Mercury.
Other departmental areas of expertise include the development of both flight
and ground software and the design, production and testing of high-voltage power
supplies.
Scott
J. Bolton, Ph.D., Director
John S. Eterno, Ph.D., Deputy Director (Acting)
Susan Pope, Assistant Director
Planetary Science
Directorate, Colorado
Space Science and Engineering
SwRI Technical Divisions
SwRI
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January 24, 2012
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