The Solar Wind Experiment (SWE) on the WIND spacecraft is a comprehensive set of sensors designed to address key problems in solar wind physics. It includes two Faraday cups (FC) for measuring energy/charge ranges from 150 V to 8 kV, a vector electron and ion spectrometer (VEIS) for detailed three-dimensional measurements of electron and ion distributions, a specialized strahl sensor to study the electron 'strahl' near the magnetic field direction, and an on-board calibration system. The FC subsystem, derived from Voyager and IMP instruments, is particularly suited for measuring supersonic plasma in the interplanetary medium. The VEIS, with increased sensitivity, provides highly time-resolved, three-dimensional snapshots of ion and electron distributions. The strahl sensor focuses on the field-aligned distortion of the electron distribution, which is of significant theoretical interest. The instrument is controlled by a flexible data processing and control unit (DPU) that supports various operational modes, data storage, formatting, command decoding, and some on-board data analysis. The scientific objectives of SWE include investigating the transfer of energy and momentum from the Sun to Earth and the properties of interplanetary space.The Solar Wind Experiment (SWE) on the WIND spacecraft is a comprehensive set of sensors designed to address key problems in solar wind physics. It includes two Faraday cups (FC) for measuring energy/charge ranges from 150 V to 8 kV, a vector electron and ion spectrometer (VEIS) for detailed three-dimensional measurements of electron and ion distributions, a specialized strahl sensor to study the electron 'strahl' near the magnetic field direction, and an on-board calibration system. The FC subsystem, derived from Voyager and IMP instruments, is particularly suited for measuring supersonic plasma in the interplanetary medium. The VEIS, with increased sensitivity, provides highly time-resolved, three-dimensional snapshots of ion and electron distributions. The strahl sensor focuses on the field-aligned distortion of the electron distribution, which is of significant theoretical interest. The instrument is controlled by a flexible data processing and control unit (DPU) that supports various operational modes, data storage, formatting, command decoding, and some on-board data analysis. The scientific objectives of SWE include investigating the transfer of energy and momentum from the Sun to Earth and the properties of interplanetary space.