NASA and SpaceX Now Targeting Sept. 24 for NASA and NOAA Space Weather Missions Launch From KSC
By Space Coast Daily // September 23, 2025
launch rescheduled from Sept. 23
BREVARD COUNTY • KSC, FLORIDA – NASA and SpaceX are now targeting 7:30 a.m., Wednesday, September 24, for the launch of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration space weather missions on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to allow more time for the recovery assets to arrive at the landing zone.
Related Story:IMAP Space Weather Mission Launch Set Sept. 23 from Kennedy Space Center Aboard SpaceX Falcon 9
All three spacecraft, NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On, Lagrange 1, and the rocket remain healthy. The weather is 90% favorable for a launch on Sept. 24.
Watch launch coverage on Space Coast Daily TV.
Previously, this lunch was targeted for September 23.
About IMAP
The IMAP spacecraft will study how the Sun’s energy and particles interact with the heliosphere — an enormous protective bubble of space around our solar system — to enhance our understanding of space weather, cosmic radiation, and their impacts on Earth and human and robotic space explorers.
The spacecraft and its two rideshares will orbit approximately one million miles from Earth, positioned toward the Sun at a location known as Lagrange Point 1.
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is a small satellite that will observe Earth’s outermost atmospheric layer, the exosphere. It will image the faint glow of ultraviolet light from this region, called the geocorona, to better understand how space weather impacts our planet.
The Carruthers mission continues the legacy of the Apollo era, expanding on measurements first taken during Apollo 16.
The SWFO-L1 spacecraft will monitor space weather and detect solar storms in advance, serving as an early warning beacon for potentially disruptive space weather, helping safeguard Earth’s critical infrastructure and technology-dependent industries.
The SWFO-L1 spacecraft is the first NOAA observatory explicitly designed for and fully dedicated to continuous, operational space weather observations.
