Elyna Niles-Carnes
Sep 17, 2025
Technicians completed integrating NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite to an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter ring at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sept. 4.
Integrating the rideshares to the ring precedes the next prelaunch launch milestone: attaching NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) heliosphere mapping observatory to a payload adapter that connects to the ring. This configuration allows all three spacecraft to launch atop a single SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, maximizing efficiency by sharing the ride to space.
The Carruthers observatory will capture light from Earth’s geocorona, the part of the outer atmosphere that emits ultraviolet light. The observations will advance our understanding of space weather, planetary atmospheric evolution, and the long-term history of water on Earth.
The SWFO-L1 satellite will keep a watchful eye on the Sun and the near-Earth environment for space weather activity. It is the first NOAA satellite designed specifically for and fully dedicated to continuous space weather observations. It will serve as an early warning beacon for destructive space weather events that could impact our technological dependent infrastructure and industries.
The spacecraft will launch together aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than 7:32 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 23, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy.
Image credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
