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BAE Systems is celebrating the successful launch of two spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center in Florida today, supporting vital NASA (nasa.gov) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) space weather missions.
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On L1 (SWFO-L1) launched together on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket (spacex.com) on their way to Lagrange point 1, an orbit approximately 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun.
BAE Systems designed and built both spacecraft to provide scientists and forecasters with powerful new instruments. The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will work to increase our understanding of the Sun’s effects on the Earth’s exosphere the outermost layer of the atmosphere while SWFO-L1 will observe space weather and its impacts.
“Through the launch of both the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and SWFO-L1 we will enhance our understanding of the Sun, the Earth’s exosphere and how space weather can impact our lives,” said Bonnie Patterson, vice president and general manager of Civil Space for BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems. “We are proud to support the missions of NASA and NOAA and the next generation science programs that these space weather missions will enable.”
The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is the first heliophysics mission to study the Sun’s influence on the exosphere during both quiet solar periods and times of intense solar activity. It will help answer questions about our exosphere, such as its shape, size, density and how it responds to large energy spikes created during intense solar storms.
The SWFO-L1 observatory will track coronal mass ejections and measure solar wind. Through the collection and delivery of continuous observations, this mission will provide early warnings of potentially disruptive space weather events to protect infrastructure on Earth and in space.
Both the SWFO-L1 and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory were designed and built using BAE Systems’ heritage Evolve spacecraft platform, which uses a common bus and standard payload interfaces to reduce cost and minimize delivery time.
Each spacecraft successfully completed a thorough design, test, and build phase leveraging commercial best practices, leading to their successful delivery and launch. BAE Systems also trained both flight operations teams and will support mission operations.
Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is a collaboration with the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with Dr. Lara Waldrop serving as the mission’s principal investigator; the University of California, Berkeley; and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The SWFO-L1 mission is managed by NOAA (noaa.gov) and developed with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and commercial partners. Both spacecraft launched as rideshares alongside NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission.
Ref. No. 112/2025
About BAE Systems
At BAE Systems (baesystems.com), we provide some of the world’s most advanced, technology-led defence, aerospace and security solutions. We employ a skilled workforce of more than 100,000 people in over 40 countries. Working with customers and local partners, we develop, engineer, manufacture, and support products and systems to deliver military capability, protect national security, and keep critical information and infrastructure secure.
BAE Systems has been in Korea for decades and currently serves our government and Korean industrial customers across air, land and sea domains with capabilities such as electronic warfare, avionics, airborne radios, GPS and naval guns.
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brian.rantala[.]baesystems.com 
