The University of Texas at Austin is getting another supercomputer in a $9 million system expected to support more than 1,000 research projects, the school and other groups announced Monday.

UT joined with the government’s National Science Foundation and other partners for the Texas Advanced Computing Center to acquire a new Lonestar system. Another UT supercomputer, known as “Ranger,” was dedicated in February 2008.

“As we did with the Ranger supercomputer, we want to make Lonestar a showcase system for researchers in Texas and throughout the world,” said UT President William Powers Jr.

TACC, in partnership with Round Rock-based Dell Inc., Intel Corp., Mellanox Technologies and DataDirect Networks, Inc., will use an HPC system involving applications running on the NSF TeraGrid, according to a statement Monday. The new system is expected to replace the current Lonestar and will offer greater capabilities.

The new supercomputer will be made available for limited use in December and for general use by TeraGrid allocations early in 2011.