SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

(Press-News.org) SAN ANTONIO — September 17, 2025 — Two instruments developed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) are integrated into a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite set to launch into space as a rideshare on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than Sept. 23, 2025.

The SwRI-built Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS) and Space Weather Follow-On Magnetometer (SWFO-MAG) are two of four instruments integrated into NOAA’s Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite. SWFO-L1 will monitor and study the Sun’s corona and measure the solar wind, high-energy particles and the interplanetary magnetic field. SwRI will support operations and data analysis for its onboard instruments. SWFO-L1 will share a ride to space with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission before separating and orbiting the Sun at Lagrange point L1, a point nearly one million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth.

As part of SWFO-L1’s suite of space weather-observing instruments, SWiPS and SWFO-MAG will capture 24/7 observational data in real-time to monitor abrupt changes in the solar wind often associated with coronal mass ejections and other space weather phenomena. When these phenomena interact with Earth’s magnetic field, they can have adverse effects on Earth and near-Earth technology. These effects can include electrical power grid disruptions, Global Positioning System navigation errors, spacecraft damage or potential harmful radiation exposure to astronauts. The SWFO-L1 data will support NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center and help predict and prepare for potential space weather impacts.

“I am thankful to all the team members who spent countless hours designing, building, and testing SWiPS and integrating it into the satellite,” said SWiPS Principal Investigator Dr. Robert Ebert, assistant director of SwRI’s Department of Space Research. “The data that SWiPS and the other instruments collect will help keep U.S. space assets safe.”

SWiPS monitors solar wind plasma to measure the properties of solar wind ions, particularly those associated with space weather events. SWFO-MAG will monitor the Sun’s magnetic field for abrupt changes that are often precursors for geomagnetic storms that, when they interact with the interplanetary magnetic field, can affect life on Earth. The Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences provided SWFO-MAG’s front-end electronics and its core electronics microchip.

“SWFO-MAG is designed to provide NOAA and the scientific community at large with important data about the solar wind as it approaches Earth. The magnetic field variations are a key parameter in predicting the severity of a solar storm’s impacts on Earth’s environment,” said SWFO-MAG Principal Investigator Dr. Roy Torbert from SwRI, who is based at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. “SWFO-MAG, which was built and tested in conjunction with UNH, will produce data to help mitigate space weather impacts.”

The SWFO-L1 mission is a partnership between NOAA and NASA. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center managed the development of the SWFO-L1 observatory on NOAA’s behalf and to NOAA’s specifications. NOAA will operate SWFO-L1 from its Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Maryland., and process the space weather data at its Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The joint launch with NASA’s IMAP mission and the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is expected no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. SwRI also plays a key role in the IMAP mission, managing the payload and developing onboard scientific instruments designed to analyze and map particles streaming from interstellar space and to help scientists understand particle acceleration near Earth.

NASA and NOAA oversee the development, launch, testing and operation of all the satellites in the Lagrange-1 Series Project. NOAA is the program owner and provides the requirements, funding, operations management, data products and information dissemination to users. NASA and its collaborators develop and build the instruments and spacecraft and provide launch services on behalf of NOAA.

For more information, visit https://www.swri.org/markets/earth-space/space-research-technology/space-science/heliophysics.

END