Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Scheduled to launch in 2025, SWFO-L1 will be NOAA’s first satellite dedicated to space weather observations. From its unique vantage point at Lagrange Point 1, a million and a half kilometers from Earth, SWFO-L1 keeps an eye on the Sun’s corona 24/7 without interruption to provide early warning of solar storms heading our way.
SWFO-L1 will use a suite of instruments to make real time measurements of the solar wind, thermal plasma, and the magnetic field. In addition, the satellite will host a compact coronagraph instrument to detect coronal mass ejections, eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun's corona. SWFO-L1 will help to sustain NOAA’s foundational set of space-based, space weather observations and measurements to maintain continuity of critical space weather data and ensure our Nation doesn’t go a minute without eyes on the Sun.
Scheduled to launch in 2025, SWFO-L1 will be NOAA’s first satellite dedicated to space weather observations. From its unique vantage point at Lagrange Point 1, a million and a half kilometers from Earth, SWFO-L1 keeps an eye on the Sun’s corona 24/7 without interruption to provide early warning of solar storms heading our way.
SWFO-L1 will use a suite of instruments to make real time measurements of the solar wind, thermal plasma, and the magnetic field. In addition, the satellite will host a compact coronagraph instrument to detect coronal mass ejections, eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun's corona. SWFO-L1 will help to sustain NOAA’s foundational set of space-based, space weather observations and measurements to maintain continuity of critical space weather data and ensure our Nation doesn’t go a minute without eyes on the Sun.

![Earth from Orbit: Hurricane Ida Causes Days of Destruction
At least nine people died from torrential rains in New York and New Jersey as Hurricane Ida moved North. NOAA satellites watched the destructive storm as it made landfall in Louisiana on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and then tore through the South and Mid-Atlantic.
Hurricane Ida struck Louisiana near Port Fourchon on August 29 as a powerful Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center.
In just three days, Ida rapidly progressed from a tropical wave to a hurricane. After striking Cuba’s Isle of Youth as a Category 1 hurricane on August 27, Ida headed northward and rapidly intensified to a Category 4 hurricane. The wind speed, fueled by unusually warm ocean temperatures, atmospheric moisture, and low wind shear, increased by 65 mph 24 hours.
The storm, which brought hurricane-force winds extending as much as 50 miles from the hurricane’s center, is tied with 2020’s Hurricane Laura and the Last Island Hurricane in 1856 for the strongest maximum sustained winds at landfall for a Louisiana hurricane.
By Monday morning, more than 1 million people in Louisiana and Mississippi were without power, after Hurricane Ida downed trees and power lines, flooded roads, and left at least five dead. Ida moved inland and brought heavy rainfall and widespread flooding from the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys into the Central and Southern Appalachians and mid-Atlantic, bringing record rainfall and deadly flooding to the New York region. Flash flood warnings were in effect Thursday for parts of northern Connecticut and Central and Western Massachusetts, according to the National Weather Service.
NOAA satellites monitored the progression of the storm as it developed and intensified. GOES-16 (GOES East) tracked its movement, winds, and lightning activity, and the Joint Polar Satellites System’s NOAA-20 and Suomi-NPP satellites, measured moisture and temperature in the sea surface and atmosphere, which helped forecasters and first responders track the hurricane’s strength, direction, and intensity.
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Learn more: https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/hurricane-ida-causes-days-destruction
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Video Credits:
NOAA
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
CIRA
Music:
“Pulsing Waters” by Paul Leonard Morgan [PRS]; Universal Production Music Earth from Orbit: Hurricane Ida Causes Days of Destruction](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OYpTaER8S8M/mqdefault.jpg)



![JPSS-2 Launches to Space
On Nov. 10, just before 2 a.m. Pacific time, an Atlas V 401 rocket carrying NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2), the third in a series of five advanced polar-orbiting satellites, launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The rocket’s secondary payload was NASA’s Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, or LOFTID, a demonstration of an experimental inflatable heat shield technology that could one day help land humans on Mars.
On Nov. 16, the JPSS-2 satellite officially reached polar orbit and was renamed NOAA-21. Working together with its sister satellites, Suomi NPP and NOAA-20, the satellites will each orbit the earth 14 times a day, providing a continuous stream of data used for weather forecasting and helping to track and monitor climate change.
Once JPSS-2/NOAA-21 is fully commissioned and operational, it will fly roughly 50 minutes, or half an orbit, ahead of NOAA-20. Suomi NPP will orbit between the two, about 25 minutes away from each. NOAA-21 will become the primary satellite, NOAA-20 will become the backup satellite, and Suomi-NPP will become the third satellite in the JPSS constellation.
Learn more:
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/jpss-2-launches-space
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Credits:
NOAA
NASA
CIRA
Launch footage courtesy of United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Music:
“Depths Unseen,” by Grant Fisher [PRS]; Freshworx; Universal Music Production JPSS-2 Launches to Space](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pz4q4eh7Fng/mqdefault.jpg)


![Earth from Orbit: NOAA Satellites Celebrate Earth Day
Throughout history, humans have wondered what Earth looked like from above.
The Mesopotamians believed the world was a flat disk floating in an ocean, while Hindu mythology says the Earth is supported by four elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle. Others imagined the world as part of a giant tree, among other ideas.
The ancient Greeks first suggested the world was spherical, and Ptolemy is credited as the first to conceive of the world in mathematical terms, publishing his treatise Geographia in AD 150. By the Middle Ages, the belief in a spherical Earth in Europe was relatively widespread.
With the birth of the space age, our actual view of the planet from above has changed as well. From blurry images that were stitched together with no frame of reference as to where they were looking, to today’s modern high resolution imagery, our perspective and ideas about what makes the world go round are constantly changing and improving.
Since 1970– also the year of the first official Earth Day– NOAA satellites have been monitoring Earth’s weather, environment, oceans, and climate, building upon early pioneering efforts by NASA and others. They provide critical information that feeds forecasts and warns us of severe weather and environmental hazards. NOAA operates two primary types of satellites: geostationary and polar-orbiting.
Learn more:
Credits:
NOAA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
CIRA
Music:
“Simple Plans,” by Sam Hamilton [PRS]; Volta Music; Universal Production Music Earth from Orbit: NOAA Satellites Celebrate Earth Day](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rx7FXm6Z-PU/mqdefault.jpg)

![NOAA Satellites Monitor Severe Weather and Smoke
As catastrophic flooding impacts the Northeast, this week skies across the region and particularly along the central and eastern U.S. have also been affected by heavy smoke from wildfires burning across Canada that has continued to drift southward.
Read more:
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/noaa-satellites-monitor-severe-weather-and-smoke
Credits:
NOAA
NASA
CIRA
Flood map courtesy of SSEC
Music:
“A Moment Frozen in Time” by Beth Perry [PRS] and Chris Doney [PRS]; Chappell; Universal Production Music NOAA Satellites Monitor Severe Weather and Smoke](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/S_sHiAtoIBk/mqdefault.jpg)