Kennedy Space Center, Florida — NASA has successfully completed integration of two key rideshare payloads the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite onto a shared adapter ring ahead of their scheduled launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The integration took place at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility, marking a major milestone before the final step: attaching NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), which will ride alongside the other two spacecraft.
This multi-payload configuration maximizes launch efficiency, allowing all three observatories to travel together into space. The Carruthers Observatory will study Earth’s geocorona an ultraviolet emitting layer of the outer atmosphere while SWFO-L1 will provide continuous monitoring of solar activity and space weather threats.
The launch is scheduled for no earlier than 7:32 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, September 23, from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.