The NOAA-NASA Space Weather Follow On (SWFO) Program to Sustain Operational Space-based Observations of Solar Wind and Coronal Mass Ejections

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) Program supports NOAA's goal of reducing the impact of severe space weather events, which directly responds to the 2020 Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act. The PROSWIFT Act directs NOAA and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to enter into agreements to develop space weather spacecraft and instruments. SWFO will ensure the continuous availability of vital Solar Wind and Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) data beyond the lifespan of NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) and NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) research Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), enabling us to better understand and prepare for space weather phenomena.

The SWFO Program includes a SWFO Lagrange 1 (L1) observatory, which will host a Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS), a Magnetometer (MAG), a SupraThermal Ion Sensor (STIS), and a Compact Coronagraph (CCOR). The program also supports the integration of a CCOR on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite - Series U (GOES-U) spacecraft. Flying a second CCOR in a geostationary orbit adds operational resilience and reliability to the CME imagery necessary for space weather warnings and forecasts. NOAA is building and will operate a robust ground architecture for SWFO. The SWFO Program successfully completed the Mission Operations Review (MOR) in the Program life-cycle in June 2023. The next major Program Milestone, the Key Decision Point-D, is planned for Q1 FY24. SWFO remains on track for launch with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, currently scheduled for FY 2025.