September Newsletter

Updated September 25, 2025                                                 

September News

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Recent Updates

 

SWFO-L1 Launched September 24 

The NOAA Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) observatory was successfully launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on September 24 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also onboard this rocket are NASA’s IMAP Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory.

SWFO-L1 will journey to Lagrange Point 1 between the sun and earth. It is designed for continuous real-time operational space weather observations and is expected to become operational mid-2026. SWFO-L1 will monitor the sun as an early warning system for coronal mass ejections, as well as other potentially dangerous emissions. Four instruments are mounted on the SWFO-L1 satellite, the Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS), SupraThermal Ion Sensor (STIS), magnetometer (MAG), and Compact Coronagraph (CCOR).

Data from SWFO-L1 will be received by NESDIS and provided to  SWPC for evaluation and eventual use in operations.

 

MTG-S1 Launched on July 1 

The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) Meteosat Third Generation Sounder 1 (MTG-S1) satellite was launched on July 1. 

This geosounder gathers high-frequency data on temperature, atmospheric trace gases and humidity, among others. This is the first geostationary meteorological sounder satellite to fly over Europe. Additional to the Infrared Sounder, MTG-S1 carries the Copernicus Sentinel-4 Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared spectrometer.

After data checkout, EMC and the TOWR-S team will be looking to integrate this data into NWS centers with responsibilities within the sounder footprint.   This data will encompass out to the Central Atlantic - and therefore likely be of interest to at least EMC, AWC, OPC, and NHC - and will be a valuable pathfinder toward the GeoXO sounder (GXS).

Please refer to the  EUMETSAT PAGE  page for more information.

 

AWIPS Software Update Available

Updates to the TOWR-S RPM and AWIPS Pre-Processor (APP) have been packaged together as TOWRpro v25 for Weather Forecast Offices and River Forecast Centers. Thank you to the >140 sites who have installed the latest version! Staff at the remaining sites are invited to install the software using this procedure. More details about what the software package entails are found here.

The next version, TOWRPro v26, is in early testing with plans for release in November 2025. Features include an enhanced Geocolor, GOES Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) Dust RGB, GPROF (polar) surface precipitation rates (requested by Alaska Region),  and reference procedure bundles for various common mission applications. TOWRPro v26 will also be available for stand-alone NWS cloud instances supporting IMETs/CWSUs.

Please visit the #towr-s Slack channel or contact the TOWR-S Team with questions.

 

Looking Ahead

OSCAT Winds Anticipated on SBN this Winter

OSCAT Winds data implementation in the NESDIS cloud (NCCF) is expected to begin operational delivery in early 2026. 

The latest TOWRpro version provides a migrational (non-operational) data flow path from a NESDIS STAR server through to NWS where the data can be ingested and displayed as data is available. The TOWRpro enhancement will also handle the product when the NESDIS source of OSCAT data flow is cut over from the STAR server to PDA distribution.

Reach out to the TOWR-S Team with any questions.

ICYMI

 

DMSP Mission Extended to 2026 

The Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) will continue to distribute Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) data through September 2026. This announcement supersedes an earlier plan, which was to terminate support for DMSP data this summer. As the DMSP series is near end-of-life, only limited Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) data flows into NWS. DOD support for their DMSP processing will be on an 8x5 basis. While off-hour disruptions are possible, no long-term interruptions to DMSP data delivery are expected. Related data from the DOD Weather System Follow-on-Microwave (WSF-M) mission's Microwave Imager (MWI) instrument are being added, initially to centers, such as NHC and OPC. 

 

Termination of POES Products

NOAA-15, NOAA-18, and NOAA-19 were phased out between May and August. The entire POES series data flows to NWS are now fully retired, including full-orbit data as well as direct-broadcast data from all POES instruments. Data from the POES follow-on JPSS mission, (which includes three satellites, S-NPP, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21) as well as data from other polar-orbiting satellites will continue flowing.

Please refer to the  contact OSPO Suspension Notification or a list of POES products to be discontinued and refer to the  OSPO NOAA-18 Decommissioning Message for more information. Users can direct further questions to User Services or Derek Van Pelt.

 

Routine Refresh of the GOES-R ASOS Satellite Cloud Product on August 28

The GOES-R Satellite Cloud Products (SCPs) station list  continues to be updated on a quarterly basis. The most recent update was implemented on August 28.

The SCPs report sky-cover conditions above several thousand surface weather stations in and near the U.S. As stations have come and gone over the years, or changed their locations or call signs, the previously static SCP list of stations was unable to track all these changes. The TOWR-S team has worked with the NESDIS OSPO team to facilitate their use of the AWIPS National Datasets Maintenance (NDM) station list. The SCPs stations list now draws from the NDM list, which is actively maintained and contains more robust data. This has led to a more current and accurate set of station locations reported by the SCPs. The list will continue to be updated on a routine basis, with the next refresh anticipated in early January 2026.

More information on the SCPs can be found on the dataset guide. The NOAA community may request station changes directly on VLAB.  Please contact  Stuti Deshpande with any questions.

 

MetOp-SG-A1 Launched on August 13

The first MetOp Second Generation weather satellite was successfully launched on August 12 as part of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) Polar System - Second Generation (EPS-SG) program. The spacecraft will be in sun-synchronous polar orbit at about 800 km above Earth. 

Data from the MetOp Second Generation series will provide continuity for the MetOP series, while also adding new instruments and data products, enhancing NWS's NWP and nowcasting mission. This new mission will consist of three pairs of dual satellites - Metop-SGA and Metop-SGB. These three consecutive pairs of Metop-SG satellites are expected to loop the planet 14 times daily. This mission is expected to run into the 2040s.

NOAA community members should expect to receive MetOp-SG data beginning in early 2027. 

Please refer to the EUMETSAT page for more information on this launch and learn more about MetOp-SG.

 

NWS Satellite Readiness Roadmap Activities

Detailed collaboration across NWS and NESDIS resulted in a preliminary roadmap for satellite readiness activities. The roadmap was briefed to NWS Leadership and the NASA and NOAA Agency-level Program Management Council (APMC) in April 2025 (see slides). 

The future of this NWS Satellite Readiness Project will focus on planning NWS satellite readiness activities for future satellite missions (e.g. description of the activities (Work Breakdown Structure), schedule, cost estimates, roles and responsibilities, risk assessment) in more specific detail. It will additionally refine proposed system characteristics from the users perspective, outlining operations, usage, and other key features. Development of this plan will integrate infrastructure efforts, enhancing coordination, reducing conflicts, improving decision-making, and providing a more comprehensive vision for the NWS Satellite Readiness project. This project will clarify how end-to-end systems (from NESDIS to NWS) will support both modeling and forecasting systems, as well as how the systems will be operated and used. This results in the development of a corresponding satellite-to-user CONOPS for satellite data exploitation.

Collaboration efforts continue with stakeholders across NWS on the Satellite Readiness Plan. The draft NWS Satellite Readiness Plan and CONOPS will be reviewed for feedback and will continue to be living documents as infrastructure and cloud contracts are awarded, execution begins, and projects are carried out in phases over the next several months

Please contact  Fawaz Al-Mtwali with any questions regarding the Roadmap.