NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) - Space Weather Follow On (SWFO) Science Center Activities

We present an overview and current status of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) activities for the Space Weather Follow On (SWFO) Program and discuss the importance of SWFO’s data products for the Heliophysics community. SWFO Program will ensure continuity of space weather operational data in the solar wind, providing advanced heliospheric observing capabilities from the Lagrange Point L1 and geostationary orbit. The SWFO-L1 spacecraft will be launched in 2025, hosting a Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS), a Magnetometer (MAG), a SupraThermal Ion Sensor (STIS) and a Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-2), enabling continuity of Coronal Mass Ejection and solar wind observations from NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) and NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) which are well past their designed lifetime. An additional coronagraph (CCOR-1) will fly on the next Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite to be launched in 2024 (GOES-U) and will add operational resilience to the CME imagery necessary for space weather monitoring and forecasts. NCEI's primary roles include leading the calibration working group to help ensure performance of the operational products produced by NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), as well as optimal scientific data stewardship and advanced data services for the research community, through the NCEI SWFO Science Center in development.