The Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) recognizes that science and human exploration are mutually enabling, NASA created SSERVI to address basic and applied scientific questions fundamental to understanding the Moon, near Earth asteroids, the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, and the near space environments of these target bodies. As a virtual institute, SSERVI funds investigators at a broad range of domestic institutions, bringing them together along with international partners via virtual technology to enable new scientific efforts.
United States Teams
NASA selected twelve research teams from nine states through Cooperative Agreement Notices. By bringing researchers together in a collaborative virtual setting they focus on questions concerning space science and human space exploration. (The work at NESS is directly supported by the NASA Solar System Exploration Virtual Institute cooperative agreement 80ARC017M0006.)
Based and managed at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California, the institute supports scientific research to complement and extend existing NASA science and technology programs. SSERVI represents an expansion of NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, established at Ames in 2008, to include other solar system human exploration destinations. U.S. SSERVI Member Teams
International Partnerships
SSERVI brings scientists from a broad array of disciplines together to solve interdisciplinary problems related to the human exploration of the solar system. SSERVI is uniquely positioned to bring people from many nations together to collaborate on these problems through international partnerships. This program provides collaboration opportunities for researchers within the global planetary science and human exploration community, working both on development of new science and technical approaches and communicating this science to the public. International SSERVI Partners
NESS Collaborations with other SSERVI Teams
- Institute for the Science of Exploration Targets – Bill Bottke, PI, SwRI
- Dynamic Response of Environments at Asteroids, the Moon, and moons of Mars (DREAM2) – Bill Farrell, PI, NASA GSFC
- Institute for Modeling Plasma, Atmospheres and Cosmic Dust (IMPACT) – Mihaly Horanyi, PI, University of Colorado
- Inner Solar System Impact Processes – David Kring, PI, LPI