NOAA – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX launches NASA, NOAA missions exploring the impacts of the Sun

September 24, 2025 Will Robinson-Smith

The primary payload, NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) was joined by two rideshare payloads heading to Lagrange Point 1. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center occurred at 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 UTC).

NASA, NOAA prep spacecraft trio to study the Sun and its impacts

August 29, 2025 Will Robinson-Smith

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) will be the primary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching no earlier than Sep. 23. The vehicle is joined by the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow-On – Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) observatory.

SpaceX launches final NOAA GOES weather satellite on Falcon Heavy rocket

June 25, 2024 Will Robinson-Smith

The geostationary orbital satellite is the fourth and final in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R (GOES-R) series. Liftoff happened at 5:26 p.m. EDT (2126 UTC).

Photos: Falcon 9 launches and lands at Vandenberg Air Force Base

November 29, 2020 Stephen Clark

These photos show the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Nov. 21 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the U.S.-European Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich oceanography satellite.

International satellite launches to extend measurements of sea level rise

November 21, 2020 Stephen Clark

A European-built satellite with the unusual shape of a house launched into orbit Saturday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Central Coast, carrying a sophisticated radar altimeter to measure rising sea levels on our home planet.

Photos: Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich encapsulated for launch

November 21, 2020 Stephen Clark

Check out photos of the encapsulation of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich oceanography satellite inside the payload shroud of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket before its launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Live coverage: SpaceX launches oceanography satellite from California

November 21, 2020 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 12:17 p.m. EST (9:17 a.m. PST; 1717 GMT) Saturday with an oceanography satellite jointly developed by U.S. and European space and weather agencies. The rocket’s first stage booster returned to a bullseye landing back at Vandenberg.

NASA selects SpaceX to launch mission studying interstellar space

September 28, 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA has awarded SpaceX a $109 million contract to launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, a NOAA space weather observatory, a robotic scout to map water on the moon, and two other ridealong payloads on a single Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in 2024.

NOAA weather satellite transitions to new role for U.S. military

September 13, 2020 Stephen Clark

A weather satellite built and launched for NOAA in 2006 to help track hurricanes approaching the United States has been repositioned to monitor weather conditions in the Middle East to support U.S. military operations in the region.

DSCOVR resumes operations after eight-month outage

March 5, 2020 Stephen Clark

The Deep Space Climate Observatory has resumed regular observations after NOAA and NASA engineers uplinked a software patch to the spacecraft a million miles from Earth, restoring data on space weather and a daily series views of the sunlit side of our home planet.