NASA and Curtin University, located in Perth, Western Australia, have signed an Affiliate Member statement with NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). With the establishment of a NASA SSERVI Australia node, Australia’s planetary science community will participate in SSERVI programs on a no-exchange-of-funds basis.

“Australia’s impressive proposal to SSERVI offers scientific and technological expertise in understanding Solar System origins and evolution, lunar science, meteoritics and small bodies, asteroid differentiation, planetary mission science and technology, regolith processes on asteroids and the Moon, advanced analytical techniques, fireball observations and orbital dynamics, and links with the exoplanet and stellar evolution astrophysical communities. We are eager to see the collaborative scientific discoveries that result from this partnership,” said Yvonne Pendleton, Director of SSERVI.

The proposal submitted by Principal Investigator Phil Bland (Curtin Univ., Perth) and Deputy Director Dr. Marc Norman (Australian National Univ., Canberra) included colleagues from a number of institutions across the country and represented a wide breadth of expertise from Australia’s planetary science community. The proposal was selected for Affiliate Membership after it was determined that complementary research activities will help NASA achieve its goals for human exploration of the solar system.

“This is a special moment for Australia,” said Professor Bland, from the Department of Applied Geology at the Curtin WA School of Mines.

“We are confident that this partnership will result in more great scientific discoveries in planetary science for both our our nations, as well as furthering the SSERVI goal of advancing basic and applied lunar and planetary science research and advancing human exploration of the solar system through scientific discovery.”