Developed to enhance scientific and forecasting capabilities, both missions will operate from Lagrange Point 1, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. There, they will observe solar activity and its effects on Earth's space environment.
"These new generation satellites will extend our knowledge of the Sun and its impacts on Earth," said 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."
The two satellites were built using BAE Systems' modular Evolve spacecraft platform, designed to streamline production and reduce costs through standardized components. Extensive prelaunch testing was conducted to ensure mission resilience. BAE Systems also trained mission operators and will support post-launch activities.
SWFO-L1 will continuously monitor solar wind and coronal mass ejections to provide early warnings for potentially disruptive space weather. The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will study how solar activity influences Earth's uppermost atmospheric layer, the exosphere, during varying solar conditions.
The Carruthers mission is led by Dr. Lara Waldrop of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with support from the University of California, Berkeley and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. NOAA's NESDIS and NASA Goddard are collaborating on SWFO-L1.
The satellites will ride to space aboard the same launch vehicle as NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), furthering NASA and NOAA's goals of improving space weather preparedness and solar research.
BAE Systems' track record in space exploration includes contributions to NASA's Hubble, Chandra, Webb, and Roman space telescopes, and NOAA's weather satellite programs such as NOAA-20, NOAA-21, Suomi NPP, and the upcoming Space Weather Next L1 Series.
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