NASA, NOAA space weather satellites to launch under cloud of Trump’s science hit list – Orlando Sentinel

Despite President Trump seeking to cut NASA’s science mission budget nearly in half, the agency is set to send up its latest hardware to study space weather.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have three satellites set to lift off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 7:32 a.m. Tuesday.

The main payload is NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) with two rideshare satellites — NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and the NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) satellite — all headed for a spot in space one million miles from Earth.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 75% chance for good launch conditions, which improves to 90% if delayed to Wednesday’s launch opportunity at 7:30 a.m.

The first-stage booster is making its second flight to space with a planned recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

All three satellites will be stationed in what’s known as a Lagrange point. Earth has five such points it shares with the sun as both bodies’ gravitational pulls allow for satellites to remain relatively stable, requiring less fuel to maintain their position in space. Lagrange Point 1 is in between the sun and Earth while Lagrange Point 2 is on the opposite side of Earth. LP2 is home to the James Webb Space Telescope for instance.

The two NASA satellites will take about 108 days before they arrive to the L1 point and begin operations. The NOAA satellite will take a little longer with operations targeting a start in April 2026.

The goals of all three satellites on this mission are to help better understand the effects of the sun on the solar system, including how far solar particles travel.

✅ Rideshare Mate Complete!

Technicians integrated NASA’s Carruthers & NOAA’s SWFO-L1 to an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) ring.

Next up: Attaching NASA’s IMAP spacecraft to the top of the payload stack!https://t.co/Ke7dzRlzIE pic.twitter.com/HyaDkyOaZa

— NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (@NASAKennedy) September 17, 2025

IMAP will study the sun’s particles and energy’s interaction throughout the heliosphere, which is the space affected by our star. Beyond the heliosphere is interstellar space. NASA looks to understand more about cosmic radiation and space weather, such as solar flares, including how they might impact Earth as well as robotic and human missions to the moon, Mars and beyond.

The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will turn its attention to Earth, looking at its exosphere, and how space weather hits the planet. It will image the ultraviolet light known as the geocorona expanding on measurements first taken during the Apollo 16 mission in 1972.

The NOAA’s SWFO-L1 spacecraft will also tackle space weather, specifically trying to detect solar storms before they could hit the planet. Geomagnetic storms created when the sun has coronal mass ejections have the potential to disrupt technology such as cell phone service as well as damage the planet’s energy infrastructure.

The missions hit some of the science needs the Trump administration is in favor of pursuing, supporting data needed for the Artemis program’s goals of sending humans to the moon and Mars as well as protecting the planet’s technology industries from harm.

“As the United States prepares to send humans back to the moon and onward to Mars, with the Artemis program, NASA science is actively providing the ultimate interplanetary survival guide to help support humanity’s epic journey along the way,” said Nicky Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for its Science Mission Directorate during a mission briefing Sunday.

She explained how data from IMAP will be able to inform NASA’s human and robotic missions to avoid the dangers of solar flares. She cited a record-breaking one that the sun spat out in 1972 in between the Apollo 16 and 17 missions.

“The astronauts narrowly missed catastrophe, when one of the most powerful radiation storms recorded since the Carrington event of 1859 occurred,” she said about the coronal mass ejection in August of 1972. “Had the astronauts been in orbit, or, in fact, on the moon’s surface, they could have experienced dangerous levels of high radiation sparked by the historically enormous solar flares bursting from the sun at unprecedented speeds.”

The same flare, which made the 93 million mile trip from the sun in a record 15 hours instead of the normal 2-3 days wreaked havoc on Earth as well.

“The United States experienced radio blackouts, significant power grid disturbances, satellite damage, and those as far south as Texas saw spectacular aurora,” she said. “It also caused magnetic disturbances, which triggered the accidental detonation of U.S. naval sea mines from the Vietnam War.”

Our solar system sits inside a vast bubble shaped by the Sun known as the heliosphere. NASA’s IMAP mission will map its boundaries and transform how we understand our place in the galaxy. Launch day is Sept. 23! pic.twitter.com/O13LkEhVlq

— NASA 360 (@NASA360) September 20, 2025

The total cost for IMAP has been nearly $800 million, including development costs, launch vehicle costs and operations for a two year prime science mission. The Caruthers Geocorona Observatory life cycle cost is $97 million.

The cost of the NOAA’s SWFO-L1 life cycle is $692 million including concept to operations to eventual disposal. That cost includes an instrument already in use that was attached to its GOES-U geostationary orbit satellite that launched last year.

NASA is paying SpaceX $109.4 million to launch all three satellites.

Trump’s proposed NASA budget for the fiscal 2026 year, which begins Oct. 1, looked to slash agency funding from 2025’s nearly $25 billion to just over $18.8 billion.

One of the biggest targets is its science and technology missions. Trump’s budget looks to cut their combined funding nearly in half, dropping from nearly $8.5 billion funded in 2025 to less than $4.5 billion in 2026.

The budget request stated Trump wanted NASA to “refocus science and space technology resources to efficiently execute high priority research.”

“Consistent with the administration’s priority of returning to the moon before China and putting an American on Mars, the budget will advance priority science and research missions and projects, ending financially unsustainable programs including Mars Sample Return,” the budget request reads. “It emphasizes investments in transformative space technologies while responsibly shifting projects better suited for private sector leadership.”

Among the targets are 41 science missions that would be killed off in what nonprofit group The Planetary Society called an “extinction-level event” for NASA’s science efforts. That amounts to 1/3 of NASA’s science portfolio.

That includes 19 existing missions “that are currently active, healthy, and producing invaluable science,” according to a statement from the Planetary Society. Among them are New Horizons, that visited Pluto and is now in the Kuiper Belt; Juno, the only mission near Jupiter; and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. It would also end the UCF-led GOLD atmospheric science mission that launched in 2018.

“These represent a cumulative investment of over $12 billion and years of work to design and build. These are irreplaceable assets,” the statement reads.

NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy had reportedly previously signaled to some of those mission teams to prepare to shut down operations in the absence of a new finalized budget from Congress.

Budget requests from any administration have to go through Congress, which will ultimately choose which programs will remain funded. Both working versions from the Senate and House for a full fiscal 2026 budget save many of the science missions. But no budget compromise has been made as yet.

So without a new budget, NASA could move forward with Trump’s plans through action from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

There are versions of a continuing resolution, called a CR, though, that look to continue funding to some of those existing science missions.

“Congress has already made its intent clear: it rejects these reckless cuts and supports continued investment in NASA science,” said Jack Kiraly, director of government relations at The Planetary Society. “Without language in the CR, OMB could override that intent, shutting down missions mid-stream, wasting taxpayer dollars, and undermining U.S. leadership in space exploration. Congress must act now to prevent irreversible harm.”

Fox detailed her team’s response when the White House put forth its initial budget request.

“We did, as we would always do, ask the missions for a plan of what it would take — what a shutdown looks like, if indeed that is the direction that we get,” she said.

In the end, she said NASA will get an appropriation that will tell them exactly what to keep working on, and what to shut down.

“NASA, as an agency, always follows the law, works closely with the Office of Management and Budget and with our appropriations committees to ensure that what we do — we of course, everything we do follows administration priorities — everything we do is for the good of the nation, and so we just wait to find out what the level of resources we will have to be able to continue to push all that forward.”

Fox would welcome direction within a continuing resolution if that passes before the end of the fiscal year avoiding a government shutdown.

“I look forward to seeing the details of that CR and whatever we are asked to do we are ready to implement,” Fox said.

Heliophysics, though, is one area the Trump administration has some mission support including $42 million for the IMAP and Caruthers missions.

It also is proposing $55 million to support the Space Weather Program, which is the most ever proposed for that program, noting it “plays a vital role” supporting “space weather applied research and applications, enhancing understanding of orbital debris, advancing modeling capability to enable successful forecasting, and providing unique and useful observations to protect life on Earth and astronauts in space.”

Fox touted all three of Tuesday’s missions for their potential to provide real utility.

“All of these missions together support and enhance the existing space weather prediction capabilities and coordination with NOAA throughout our solar system in near real time for the benefit of all,” she said.