San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute broke ground on a hypersonic propulsion research facility.
Local officials and Southwest Research Institute leaders broke ground Monday on a facility to study the next generation of aerospace engines that can travel faster than five times the speed of sound. The 36,600-square-foot facility — called the Center for Accelerating Materials and Processes, or CAMP — will initially focus on “demonstrating faster, more efficient techniques for manufacturing high-speed propulsion systems,” SwRI said.
The building, on the nonprofit research organization’s West Side campus, will help speed production of such systems by helping scientists learn how to do it better, cheaper and faster to meet a growing demand across defense, air travel, delivery and transportation industries, said Barron Bichon, director of SwRI’s materials engineering department. “Hypersonics is an interesting research area, and we’re trying to push it further,” Bichon said. “The systems we’re looking to produce here will be able to accelerate vehicles at six to eight times the speed of sound.” READ MORE: Southwest Research Institute adding $27 million research building to main campus As interest in such technologies grows around the world, SwRI’s CAMP facility is the second investment in hypersonic research in the local area in recent years. In 2021, the University of Texas at San Antonio opened a hypersonic wind tunnel to study the effects of high-speed flight. SwRI’s new facility, however, is different in that it will focus on production of materials and processes for hypersonics rather than testing, Bichon said. The CAMP won’t have wind tunnels, he said. Instead, the roughly two dozen scientists and engineers expected to work on the facility will look at how to make specialized engines known as scramjets. SwRI contributed $34 million for the facility, along with undisclosed amounts for equipment from the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Secretary of Defense’s Manufacturing Science and Technology Program. Some of the CAMP’s work will support a nearly $17 million contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory. Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, who is a SwRI advisory board member, called the project “a game changer.” The work done at SwRI, such as the CAMP project, he said, “will change the way we do things in our world, our country and especially when it deals with military defense or anything that goes into our country’s security.” RELATED: ‘7 times the speed of sound’: UTSA goes hypersonic to study the next generation of flight Beyond bolstering national security and furthering knowledge, Sakai sees such endeavors as important economic development drivers. “These are the types of projects that generate jobs, not only at the highly skilled Ph.D. level, but all the way down to the people that have to help support the maintenance and people that have to serve the people that work here,” he said. “Bexar County is all in to support Southwest Research.” U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, lauded the collaboration by federal and local officials to land the project as a “team effort.” “I love sitting on the Appropriations Committee,” he said. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like money, right? And so, we’ve worked very hard to help deliver millions of dollars, but you know, so has my good friend Henry Cuellar, who also sits on the Appropriations Committee with me.” When SwRI needs money, Gonzales, said, “All I say is how much and then go to work.” Facilities like SwRI, he said, help ensure the U.S. stays at the forefront of technology. And that helps reassure allies like Ukraine and other European countries, which Gonzales is scheduled to visit this month. Defeating adversaries “doesn’t just happen in a silo,” he said. “It happens with the research. It happens with the dedication, and it happens with the tools to go out and get ahead of it.” Construction on SwRI’s CAMP project is expected to be complete in about a year.
Center For Accelerating Materials University Of Texas At San Antonio Air Force Research Laboratory Appropriations Committee Tony Gonzales Barron Bichon Peter Sakai Henry Cuellar Ph.D. R West Side Bexar County U.S. Ukraine European San Antonio Center For Accelerating Materials Manufacturing Science And Technology Program Southwest Research
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SwRI building San Antonio lab to make systems that travel five times the speed of soundSwRI broke ground on a building where engineers will come up with faster and more efficient ways to produce hypersonic systems.
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