Socorro is locted in central New Mexico in the Rio Grande Valley. It is 1.4 kilometres above sea level.  Near Socorro you will find the Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site (ETS) where the instruments used by the LINEAR program are located. The LINEAR (Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research) program is a collaboration of the United States Air Force, Nation Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It's main job is to detect and track near-Earth objects. Since 2011, LINEAR has detected 231 000 new small solar system bodies, of which 2423 were near-Earth asteroids and 279 were comets.  Also near Socorro is the White Sands Missile Range. Founded in 1941, it was where the Trinity test occurred - the first detonation of a nuclear weapon.