Southwest Research Institute has won a $26.1 million contract to design and build magnetometers for NOAA’s Lagrange 1 Series satellites, enhancing significantly the capability of forecasting space weather.
The Southwest Research Institute has been awarded a $26.1 million contract to develop magnetometers for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Lagrange 1 Series satellites under NOAA’s Space Weather Next program. These magnetometers will measure the interplanetary magnetic field carried by the solar wind, critically important data for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
The Lagrange 1 Series satellites will orbit the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1, located about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, providing a vantage viewpoint to continuously monitor solar winds conditions and an early detection of all types of space weather phenomena which may have an impact on satellite services, power grids, or even communication systems on Earth.
SwRI designs, develops, fabricates, integrates, calibrates, and evaluates the magnetometer instruments. The institute is also tasked with supporting launches and on-orbit checkout for the instruments, supplying and maintaining ground support equipment, and augmenting the mission operations center as required.
This is part of NOAA’s broader effort to improve its capacity for space weather forecasting. In this regard, NOAA aims at better accuracy and timeliness of space weather alerts that could impact technological infrastructures and human activities by making advanced instruments like SwRI’s magnetometers available.
This collaboration between SwRI and NOAA proves its worth in monitoring space weather phenomena and is a big step towards protecting Earth’s technological systems from the effects of solar activity.
