The NOAA Space Weather Follow-On Program to Ensure Continuity of CME Imagery and Solar Wind Space-Based Observations

The NOAA Space Weather Follow On (SWFO) program seeks to establish the continuity of operational space weather observations beyond the current generation of missions, DSCOVR and joint ESA/NASA Solar and Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO). NOAA’s Space Weather operational mission requires observational redundancy and continuous delivery of services. The current source of CME imagery is the SOHO mission, currently operating without redundancy and with an anticipated 2025 end of mission life. DSCOVR, which collects Solar Wind data, is a research-grade satellite and is susceptible to mission failure with the loss of any single string critical components. Space weather is primarily driven by solar storm phenomena that include coronal mass ejections (CME), solar flares, solar particle events and solar wind. To forecast space weather and provide accurate warnings and watches, imagery of CME from the sun and in-situ measurements of solar wind plasma are required by the National Weather Service (NWS) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).To fulfill NOAA’s Space Weather requirements NESDIS plan forward for SWFO is to build the foundational capability required for the SWPC to issue watches, warnings and alerts. The plans currently include: 1) Building two Compact CORonagraph (CCOR) instruments; 2) Flying and operating the first CCOR unit on the Sun-Earth line on the GOES-U spacecraft; 3) Procuring a SWFO L1 satellite and a Solar Wind Instruments Suite (SWIS) that includes a Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS), a Supra Thermal Ion Sensor (STIS), and a set of magnetometers; 4) Flying and operating the SWFO L1 mission with SWIS and the second CCOR unit upstream of Earth at Lagrange point 1 (L1); 5) Building and operating a robust ground architecture and 6) Maintaining archives at NCEI for space-based data which are essential for model development and benchmarking. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) designed for NOAA and it is building a CCOR capable of comparable performance to full size heritage units but small enough to be compatible to a variety of platforms; CCOR project is in phase B.