SAN FRANCISCO — The Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio won a $26.1 million contract to build a space weather instrument for NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Under the contract announced Dec. 9, SwRI will develop two magnetometers for the Lagrange 1 Series project, part of NOAA’s Space Weather Next program. The magnetometers will measure the interplanetary magnetic field carried by the solar wind. Instrument data then will be supplied to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, which issues forecasts, warnings and alerts to help mitigate space weather impacts.
SwRI’s work, scheduled to conclude in January 2034, includes design, analysis, development, fabrication, integration, test, verification and evaluation of the magnetometers. In addition, SwRI will support the launch of the instruments, supply and maintain ground equipment and assist with post-launch mission operations at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility in Maryland.
Additional work to the contract will be conducted in San Antonio, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA and NOAA will jointly oversee development, launch, testing and operation of satellites in the Lagrange 1 Series project. NOAA is providing program requirements and funding in addition to managing the program, operations, data products and disseminating data. NASA and its commercial partners will develop and build the instruments, spacecraft and provide launch services on behalf of NOAA.
San Antonio-based SwRI also is building three coronagraphs for NOAA’s Space Weather Next program and the QuickSounder weather satellite for NOAA’s Near Earth Orbit Network.