SpaceX launch carries trio of probes to eye space weather

The rocket on Wednesday morning carried two NASA missions and one craft operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that will study solar wind. Each of the spacecraft deployed successfully and the rocket’s final stage returned to Earth as planned. The NOAA-operated Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1, called SWFO-L1 for short, will monitor and send warnings about solar storms to industry operators on the ground and in space. These sudden explosions of particles, energy, and material can disrupt the Earth’s magnetic field and interfere with radio communications and power systems, according to NASA. They do not cause direct harm to humans.

What will the NASA missions do? The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe will study the boundaries of the heliosphere, the protective bubble formed by the sun that protects the solar system from radiation. The mission will investigate how charged particles from the sun form solar wind and how that wind interacts with space. NASA will also operate the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, which will study the Earth’s outer atmosphere. The so-called exosphere is a transition zone between the atmosphere and space and is difficult to study from Earth.

Dig deeper: Read Dane Skelton’s report about Apollo 13 Commander James Lovell’s recent death.