Carruthers Geocorona Observatory

Carruthers Geocorona Observatory

A BAE systems technician inspecting the fully assembled Carruthers Geocorona Observatory
Mission type	Space weather
Operator	NASA
Start of mission
Launch date	23 September 2025 (planned)
Rocket	Falcon 9 Block 5
Launch site	Kennedy, LC-39A
Contractor	SpaceX
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric orbit
Regime	L1

The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, previously called Global Lyman-alpha Imagers of the Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) is a NASA mission led by the University of Illinois, which will survey ultraviolet light emitted by Earth's outermost atmospheric layer, the exosphere. ^{[1] [2]}

The mission name was given to honour Dr. George R. Carruthers, a pioneer American space physicist, engineer and inventor. He is widely recognised for his groundbreaking contributions to ultraviolet astronomy. His most famous invention was the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph, ^[3] a compact but powerful telescope that was placed by the astronauts of Apollo 16 on the Moon in 1972. ^[4]

Launch

Carruthers Geocorona Observatory is planned to be launched as a secondary payload on the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle carrying NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft. ^{[5] [6]} As of December 2024, the launch is scheduled for no earlier than September 2025.

References

1. "GLIDE (Carruthers Geocorona Observatory)". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
2. "NASA Selects Heliophysics Missions of Opportunity for Space Science Research and Technology Demonstration". NASA. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
3. "Looking Back: Dr. George Carruthers and Apollo 16 Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph". NASA. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
4. "BAE Systems completes integration of NASA's Carruthers Observatory". BAE Systems. Retrieved 1 March 2025.
5. "NASA Selects Proposals to Further Study the Fundamental Nature of Space" (Press release). NASA. 13 August 2019. Retrieved 9 October 2019. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
6. "NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for IMAP Mission" (Press release). NASA. 25 September 2020. Retrieved 25 September 2020. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .