NASA Awards Contract for NOAA’s Next-Generation Space Weather Sensors
November 26, 2024 – NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado, to build and launch four spacecraft that will provide critical data to help protect power grids, satellites, and other infrastructure from the effects of space weather.
The spacecraft, known as the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission, will be the first to measure the full range of solar emissions that create space weather. These emissions, including extreme ultraviolet light and X-rays, can disrupt power grids, damage satellites, and even interfere with radio communications.
“Space weather can have a significant impact on our daily lives,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science. “The GOLD mission will provide us with the data we need to better understand and predict space weather events, so we can take steps to mitigate their effects.”
The GOLD mission is part of NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers program, which funds missions to study the sun and its influence on Earth and the solar system. The mission is expected to launch in 2028.
The Lockheed Martin team will build the spacecraft and integrate the GOLD instruments. The instruments were developed by a team led by the University of California, Berkeley.
“GOLD will be a game-changer for space weather forecasting,” said Dan Baker, the mission’s principal investigator from the University of Colorado Boulder. “For the first time, we will be able to measure the full range of solar emissions that create space weather, which will allow us to better understand and predict these events.”
The GOLD mission will orbit Earth in a geostationary orbit, which will allow it to continuously monitor the sun. The mission will also be able to track coronal mass ejections, which are large clouds of plasma that can cause geomagnetic storms.
The data from the GOLD mission will be used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to improve space weather forecasts. NOAA is responsible for providing space weather alerts and warnings to the public and to critical infrastructure operators.
“The GOLD mission will provide us with the data we need to improve our space weather forecasts and to better protect our infrastructure from the effects of space weather,” said William Murtagh, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
The GOLD mission is a key part of NASA’s efforts to understand and mitigate the effects of space weather. The mission will provide critical data that will help to protect our infrastructure and ensure the safety of our planet.
NASA Awards Contract for NOAA’s Next-Generation Space Weather Sensors
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