Arrival of SWFO-L1 and Carruthers Rideshares for IMAP Mission

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) Observatory, set to provide quicker and more accurate space weather forecasts, arrived Sunday, July 20, 2025, at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The SWFO-L1 mission will monitor the Sun and near-Earth environment using a suite of instruments that provide real-time measurements of solar activity.

Technicians offloaded NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory following the spacecraft’s arrival on Sunday, July 20, 2025, at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is a small satellite set to operate at Lagrange Point 1 (L1), an orbit point between the Earth and Sun about one million miles away, to study the Earth’s exosphere, the outermost part of the atmosphere. Carruthers will use its ultraviolet cameras to monitor how space weather from the Sun impacts the exosphere.

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Carruthers Geocorona ObservatoryIMAPInterstellar Mapping and Acceleration ProbeKSCKennedy Space CenterLSPLaunch Services ProgramNASASWFO-L1Space Weather Follow On - Lagrange 1ridesharespacecraft