NASA, NOAA Join Forces for Solar Storm Defense Mission
(MENAFN) NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are preparing for a critical joint mission set to launch Wednesday aimed at studying the sun and enhancing Earth’s defenses against powerful solar storms that threaten technology and power infrastructure, according to reports.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, carrying three spacecraft designed to monitor solar activity and its impact on our planet, media reported.
“It is extremely urgent for us to actually understand what our sun is doing for us,” NASA science chief Nicky Fox told media. She emphasized that NASA’s priority will be astronaut safety, while NOAA will spearhead forecasting services for civilian protection.
The mission’s payload features NOAA’s SWFO-L1—the agency’s first dedicated space-weather observatory—NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, which will examine Earth’s outer atmospheric layer, and the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), tasked with measuring solar particles and charting the heliospheric boundary that protects the solar system from interstellar radiation.
All three spacecraft will be positioned near the sun-facing L1 point, roughly 1 million miles from Earth, providing uninterrupted monitoring of solar conditions.
Fox highlighted the broad risks posed by space weather, explaining its potential to disrupt GPS accuracy and affect sectors including aviation, energy, mining, and precision agriculture. She compared solar-storm tracking to hurricane forecasting, stating, “All three satellites together … show how the sun influences not only Earth but the whole solar system.”
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