OrbitalHub

Mea AI adiutor dicit:

Early on the morning of September 24, 2025, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thundered off Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, carrying into space a powerful trio: NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On – Lagrange 1). The launch marked a bold new chapter in humanity’s efforts to monitor and understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system. The weather was nearly perfect—a 90 percent favorable forecast—and the three spacecraft were stacked together in a “cosmic carpool” bound for a vantage point some 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, at the L1 Lagrange point between the Sun and Earth.

IMAP is the centerpiece of the mission package. Designed to probe the boundary of the heliosphere—the region where the solar wind collides with the interstellar medium—it will sample energetic particles streaming outward from the Sun and inward from beyond, charting the invisible frontier that shields our solar system from cosmic rays. Its array of ten instruments includes devices to detect solar wind electrons, energetic ions, interstellar dust, and magnetic fields, among others. IMAP will also provide near–real-time data useful for space weather prediction, offering up to thirty minutes of advance warning for harmful solar radiation events.

Accompanying IMAP is the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, a smaller NASA payload dedicated to observing the Earth’s exosphere—the tenuous outermost layer of our atmosphere. From its L1 vantage point, Carruthers will use ultraviolet imaging to monitor the geocorona’s glow, revealing how it responds to solar storms and seasonal changes. The mission is named in honor of George Carruthers, a pioneering space physicist and ultraviolet astronomer.

Meanwhile, NOAA’s SWFO-L1 is the operational arm of this venture, designed for continuous, real-time space weather monitoring. With instruments including a solar wind plasma sensor, magnetometer, and coronagraph, SWFO-L1 will keep watch on solar emissions and storms that could affect Earth’s satellites, communications networks, power grids, and crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit.

Following liftoff, the mission deployment sequence unfolded about 83 minutes later, with IMAP separating first, followed by Carruthers and SWFO-L1 in carefully timed intervals. Engineers expected to receive IMAP’s first signal roughly ten minutes after deployment, while Carruthers’ communications would follow about half an hour later. All spacecraft are destined for halo orbits around L1, providing unobstructed views of solar activity and the heliosphere’s edge.

This launch is more than a technological feat—it’s a leap toward safeguarding life and infrastructure on Earth, as well as deepening our knowledge of how the Sun, Earth, and the galaxy interact. In the coming months and years, IMAP, Carruthers, and SWFO-L1 will collectively map invisible space weather dynamics, chart the Sun’s magnetic bubble, monitor the Earth’s exosphere, and provide vital data for future human missions venturing beyond our planet.

Video credit: NASA/SpaceX

NASA dicit:

This year, the ozone hole over Antarctica reached its annual maximum extent on September 28th, 2024, with an area of 8.5 million square miles (22.4 square million kilometers). The hole, which is actually a region of depleted ozone, was the 20th smallest since scientists began recording the ozone hole in 1979. The average size of the ozone hole between September and October this year was the 7th-smallest since the Montreal Protocol began to take effect.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Wikipedia dicit:

GOES-U is a weather satellite, the fourth and last of the GOES-R series of satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The GOES-R series will extend the availability of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) system until 2036. The satellite is built by Lockheed Martin, based on the A2100 platform.

The satellite is expected to be launched into space atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on June 25, 2024, delayed from April 30 2024, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, United States. The redesign of the loop heat pipe to prevent an anomaly, as seen in GOES-17, is not expected to delay the launch as it did with GOES-T.

GOES-U will also carry a copy of the Naval Research Laboratory’s Compact CORonagraph (CCOR) instrument which, along with the CCOR planned for Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), will allow continued monitoring of solar wind after the retirement of the NASA-ESA SOHO satellite in 2025.

It will have a dry mass of 2,925 kg (6,449 lb) and a fueled mass of 5,000 kg (11,023 lb).

Video credit: Lockheed Martin

NASA dicit:

“Year 2018 was the fourth hottest year in the modern record, part of a decades-long trend of warming. The record dates back to 1880, when it became possible to collect consistent, reliable temperatures around the planet. NASA and NOAA work together to track the temperatures, part of ongoing research into our warming planet.”

Video Credit: NASA Goddard

NASA dixit:

“Global temperatures in 2017 were second only to 2016, which still holds the record for the hottest year; however, 2017 was the warmest year on record that did not start with an El Nino weather pattern, as the previous two years did. In a separate, independent analysis, NOAA scientists found that 2017 was the third-warmest year in their record. The minor difference is due to different methods to analyze global temperatures used by the two agencies, although over the long-term the records remain in strong agreement.”

Music: Sojourner Rover by Craig Warnock [PRS], Lee Ahmad Baker [PRS], Sean Hennessey [PRS]

Video credit: NASA

Wikipedia dixit:

“GOES-17 (formerly GOES-S) is the second of the next generation of weather satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The next satellites of the series (GOES-16, -17, -T, and -U) will extend the availability of the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system) until 2036 for weather forecast and meteorology research. The satellite was built by Lockheed Martin, was based on the A2100A platform, and will have an expected useful life of 15 years (10 years operational after five years of standby as an on-orbit replacement).

NOAA’s GOES-R series of satellites is designed to improve the forecasts of weather, ocean, and environment by providing faster and more detailed data, real-time images of lightning, and advanced monitoring of solar activities and space weather. GOES-17 can collect three times more data at four times image resolution, and scan the planet five times faster than previous probes.

GOES-17 has the same instruments and capabilities as GOES-16 (currently serving as GOES-East), and will complement its work by scanning a different area of the world. GOES-17 will become GOES-West and cover the west Coast of US, Alaska, Hawaii, and much of the Pacific Ocean. These two satellites are expected to monitor most of the Western Hemisphere and detect natural phenomena, like hurricanes, wildfires, and fog in almost real time.”

Video credit: NASA