The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR)

NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 11, 2015, and reached its station at Lagrange point 1 (L1) on June 8, 2015. It is the nation's first operational satellite in deep space replacing NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) research satellite as America's primary warning system for solar magnetic storms headed towards Earth. DSCOVR provides measurements of the proton and alpha components of the solar wind; 3-dimensional magnetic field vector and 3-dimensional electron velocity distribution. These measurements coupled with a new forecast model will provide warnings of space weather events with between 15-60 minute lead times. This presentation will provide an overview of the DSCOVR program and its current status.

The DSCOVR program is conducted by NOAA in partnership with NASA and the U.S. Air Force. NESDIS is responsible for operating the satellite, for data acquisition and for delivering raw data to the National Weather Service (NWS) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) and to NASA. SWPC produces space weather products and issues space weather alerts. The refurbishment of DSCOVR and its solar wind sensors was performed for NESDIS by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Additionally, GSFC is responsible for achieving secondary NASA Earth science research objectives using data from sensors hosted on the DSCOVR platform. The USAF provided the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and services. The international Real Time Solar Wind Network (RTSWnet) with participation from Germany, Japan and South Korea with backup from the Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN), provide world-wide real time downlink of space weather data for SWPC.