SOLAR-1
SOLAR-1 (launched as SWFO-L1) — NOAA's space-weather satellite at the Sun–Earth L1 point, launched on 24 September 2025 and renamed when it reached its orbit on 23 January 2026. NOAA calls it America's first satellite designed exclusively for continuous, operational space-weather observations; its coronagraph watches for eruptions from the Sun heading toward Earth.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NOAA
- Launched
- September 24, 2025
- Status
- Active
Trajectory
- Speed rel. Earth
- 216 m/s
- Computed from the cached state vector, relative to Earth
- Distance from the Sun
- 0.987 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 9,519,747 km
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.266 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
SOLAR-1 was launched as SWFO-L1 — Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 — on 24 September 2025, on the Falcon 9 that also carried NASA's IMAP and Carruthers. On 23 January 2026 it made its final engine burn into its orbit around the Sun–Earth L1 point, about 1.5 million km from Earth, and NOAA renamed it Space Weather Observations at L1 to Advance Readiness–1: SOLAR-1. NOAA describes it as America's first satellite designed exclusively for continuous, operational space-weather observations. Its instruments — a solar-wind plasma sensor, a suprathermal ion sensor, a magnetometer and the CCOR compact coronagraph — watch the Sun's outer atmosphere for coronal mass ejections and sample the solar wind on its way to Earth, giving warning of storms that threaten power grids, satellites and communications. It has a planned five-year mission, with consumables for ten.
- 2025Launch as SWFO-L1Launch
On a Falcon 9 with NASA's IMAP and Carruthers.
- 2026In its L1 orbit — renamed SOLAR-1Arrival
After its final engine burn.
Images
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