Will Build Magnetometer For NOAA Space Weather Next Program

The Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio was selected by NASA on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to build the next-generation space weather magnetometer for the Lagrange 1 Series project under NOAA’s Space Weather Next program. The cost-plus-fee contract includes development of two magnetometers and is valued at about $26.1 million.

The work will be done at Southwest’s facility in San Antonio, Texas, along with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The contract runs from December 2024 through January 2034.

The magnetometers measure the interplanetary magnetic field carried by the solar wind. The date obtained provide critical information to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center to enable the issuance of timely forecasts, alerts, and warnings to help mitigate the effects of impending solar storms that affect power grids, communications, and navigation systems.

The magnetometers will accompany a suite of additional instruments that will be placed into orbit around the Lagrange1 or L1 gravitational point. This is a point approximately 1.5 million km (900,000 mi) from Earth on the Earth-Sun line where the gravitational forces of the two bodies cancel each other out, providing a stable area for satellites to be placed for observations and reporting back to Earth.

Satellites at L1 relay real time measurements of space weather parameters such as solar wind observations, imaging of the Sun’s corona, thermal plasma, and the magnetic field. The satellites currently in place are past their designed lifetimes and are being replaced to maintain the continuity of monitoring space weather.

FMI:  www.nesdis.noaa.gov/