For immediate release
San Antonio — July 27, 2015 — Dr. Alan Stern, associate vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), has been invited to testify on July 28 before the U.S. House of Representative’s Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Space.
Stern, principal investigator of NASA's historic New Horizons mission to the Pluto system, is expected to address some of the scientific discoveries uncovered during the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 14, and opportunities for further scientific study by extending the mission for a flyby of an additional Kuiper Belt object.
The New Horizons spacecraft traveled more than 3 billion miles over nine and a half years to reach its primary destination, flying within 7,800 miles of Pluto and revealing to the world the first images of its surface.
Stern, a planetary scientist, was named to Time Magazine's "List of 100 Most Influential People" in 2007. He has been an associate vice president at SwRI since 2009. From 2007-08 he led NASA’s $4.4 billion Earth and space science program consisting of 93 flight missions and more than 3,000 research grants.
For more information, contact Deb Schmid, +1 210 522 2254, Communications Department, Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238-5166.