Ball Aerospace successfully completed critical design review (CDR) for the NOAA Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) spacecraft — the company will now proceed with production, integration and testing of the spacecraft.
Expected to launch in 2025, SWFO-L1 will collect solar wind data and coronal imagery to meet NOAA’s operational requirements to monitor and forecast impacts from solar storm activity
Ball Aerospace was selected by NASA to design, build and integrate the small satellite for NOAA’s SWFO-L1 mission in partnership with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Ball will also perform satellite-level testing, help train the flight operations team, check-out the satellite on-orbit and support mission operations. The SWFO-L1 mission builds on the success of Ball’s spacecraft buses designed for operational weather missions such as NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP, as well as high-performing, smallsat missions such as STPSats-2 and 3 and the Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM).
Ball Aerospace is also building an operational environmental satellite for the U.S. Space Force Space Space Systems Command called the Weather System Follow-on – Microwave (WSF-M). WSF-M will host its own Energetic Charged Particle space weather sensor in addition to its primary instrument to measure ocean surface vector winds and tropical cyclone intensity.
“The impacts of solar events such as coronal mass ejections can be significant, from knocking out communications satellites to disrupting the power grid,” said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace. “SWFO will be an important tool in NOAA’s mission to monitor space weather, provide timely and accurate warnings, and help minimize the impact of these events on our infrastructure and economy.”
Ball Corporation (NYSE: BALL) supplies innovative, sustainable aluminum packaging solutions for beverage, personal care and household products customers, as well as aerospace and other technologies and services primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ 24,300 people worldwide and reported 2021 net sales of $13.8 billion.