Elodie Collins
BAE Systems has confirmed the delivery of NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On – L1, or SWFO-L1, observatory to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Both spacecraft are scheduled to launch together in the coming months as part of a rideshare mission, the company said. They will be deployed at Lagrange point 1, which is about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
NASA, NOAA Upcoming Space Missions
Carruthers is a small satellite built in collaboration with the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; the University of California, Berkeley; and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. It is equipped with ultraviolet cameras for monitoring solar activity and studying the impact of the sun on the outermost layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, which is called the exosphere.
Meanwhile, SWFO-L1 has a special solar telescope and a suite of scientific instruments to monitor and measure solar wind. The spacecraft will provide NOAA with real-time space weather data to enable more accurate forecasts and warnings and protect critical infrastructures on the ground and in space.
“This new generation of satellites will extend our knowledge of the Sun and its impacts on Earth,” commented Bonnie Patterson, vice president and general manager of civil space for BAE Systems Space and Mission Systems. “The successful delivery of the SWFO-L1 and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory satellites marks a new era of discovery and space weather data that holds exciting promise, and we are proud to support these missions.”
