NOAA SWFO-L1

Orbiting the Sun to provide early warnings for destructive space weather

NOAA SWFO-L1
NOAA plans to launch the SWFO-L1 satellite to Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1 in 2025 on the NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe. Credit: NOAA

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) includes a Rocket Lab-powered spacecraft built by Ball Aerospace. SWFO-L1 is expected to launch alongside the NASA GLIDE mission in 2025

SWFO-L1 is a heliophysics mission that will collect solar wind data and coronal imagery to meet NOAA’s operational requirements to monitor and forecast solar storm activity. SWFO-L1 will orbit the Sun at approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth on the Earth-Sun line, a point known as L1.

As a next-generation space weather observing satellite, SWFO-L1 will monitor signs of solar storms and assess their potential impact on our planet's space infrastructure.