Nasa contracts five companies to extend space weather forecasting

The aim is that the L1 series will “extend continuity and resiliency” of real-time solar imagery and solar wind measurements.

The contracted companies are: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL), EO Vista, University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), Raytheon Intelligence & Space, and Southwest Research Institute (SWRI).

Nasa says the total base value of the eight-month firm-fixed-price contracts is $800,000, with a four-month option valued at $400,000 for approximately $1.2 million each. The work will be performed at the contractors’ facilities. They were made by NASA, on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The space agency writes:

“The principal purpose of these contracts is to provide a definition-phase study of a L1 Series COR instrument. The COR instrument will provide coronal imagery of the Sun for detection and characterization of the Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejections. It is planned to fly on the NOAA Space Weather Next Program L1 Series satellites.

The selected firms will develop the instrument concept and mature necessary technologies. The study will help define the instrument’s potential performance, risks, costs, and development schedule. The results of the study will be used to set performance requirements for the COR instrument implementation contract, which is planned for award in 2024.”

The latest L1 Series Project will continuity the real-time solar imagery and solar wind measurements (plasma properties and magnetic field) that have been provided for decades by legacy missions (for example, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is carrying the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) telescope, and NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission).

The next operational space weather mission at L1, Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), is planned for launch in 2025. The first L1 Series launch, says Nasa, will provide “operational overlap with SWFO-L1 to provide for cross-calibration with the SWFO-L1 instruments”.

“Space Weather” refers to conditions in Earth’s space environment, with particular interest in space weather disturbances, which may be damaging to human health or to technology, whether deployed in space or on the ground – such as the Carrington Event.

More information about studying space weather can be found here.

Image: NESDIS (the U.S. National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service)

See also: Lockheed Martin, Maxar Space win NOAA weather satellite contracts

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