Department of Space Studies scientists recently completed three flights (the first of a two-part observing sequence) aboard a NASA F-18 aircraft in an innovative, high-altitude search for vulcanoids, a putative population of small asteroids that may be circling the Sun within the orbit of Mercury.

SwRI scientists Dan Durda and Alan Stern used the SWUIS-A camera to image the vulcanoid zone in the deep twilight observed from an altitude of 49,000 feet over NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California. Data reduction on the images gathered from these inital flights is underway.

SwRI press release and NASA-Dryden press release on the Vulcanoids flights

AviationNow article on the Vulcanoids flights

SWUIS-A homepage

NASA-Dryden page on airborne astronomy