Built and tested at BAE Systems’ facility in Boulder, Colorado, the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On – L1 (SWFO-L1) are now in place for a joint launch later this year from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
Both satellites are set to operate from Lagrange Point 1 located roughly 1.5 million kilometres from Earth where they will continuously observe solar activity and its effects on our planet.
“These satellites represent a leap forward in our ability to understand and respond to space weather,” said Bonnie Patterson, vice president and general manager of Civil Space at BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems.
“Their successful delivery marks the beginning of a new era in space weather forecasting and solar science, and we’re proud to be supporting both NASA and NOAA on these critical missions.”
BAE Systems led the design, construction and environmental testing of both spacecraft, using its proven Evolve satellite platform. This modular design reduces costs and shortens delivery times by using a common spacecraft bus and standardised payload interfaces. The company has also trained the mission’s flight operations teams and will provide ongoing mission support.
The SWFO-L1 satellite will monitor the sun for coronal mass ejections and track solar winds – two key space weather phenomena that can pose serious risks to satellite systems, communications infrastructure and even power grids on Earth. It will provide continuous real-time observations to help forecasters issue early warnings of solar storms.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will study how solar activity influences Earth’s exosphere, the outermost layer of the atmosphere under both calm and active solar conditions. The mission is named in honour of the late Dr George Carruthers, a pioneering African American astrophysicist and inventor.
The Carruthers mission is a collaboration involving the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (with Dr Lara Waldrop as principal investigator), the University of California, Berkeley, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The SWFO-L1 mission is led jointly by NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service and NASA Goddard.
Both spacecraft will launch alongside NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe.
This latest delivery further extends BAE Systems’ legacy of support for NASA and NOAA missions, including past work on the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope, and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
The company has also contributed to NOAA’s polar-orbiting weather satellites, such as NOAA-20, NOAA-21, and the Suomi NPP, as well as the forthcoming Space Weather Next L1 Series.
The launch of SWFO-L1 and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory represents a significant step forward in space weather science helping to better protect Earth’s critical infrastructure and deepen our understanding of solar–terrestrial interactions.