Five firms have been selected by NASA, on behalf of NOAA, for the Space Weather Next PHOtospheric Magnetograph Imager (PHOMI) study. These contracted firms will provide services to help meet the objectives of a future project under the Space Weather Next program. The period of performance will be nine months starting June 1, 2026 with an optional extension of six months.
The selected firms are:
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, Maryland
- BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems, Boulder, Colorado
- Lockheed Martin Corporation, Littleton, Colorado
- Regents of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas (headquarters) and Boulder, Colorado (facility)
Each firm was awarded a nine-month firm-fixed-price contract valued at approximately $900,000. The work will be performed at the contractors’ facilities.
Under these studies, the selected firms will provide the government with feedback on PHOMI requirements, develop a notional instrument concept, facilitate risk reduction activities, and mature key technologies. The studies will help define the instrument’s potential performance, risks, costs, and development schedule. The results of the study will be used to set performance requirements for a future PHOMI instrument implementation acquisition.
The PHOMI instrument would provide magnetic field maps of the sun’s surface to support active region characterization and improve modeling of the solar wind and coronal mass ejection (CME), including estimates of CME arrival times to Earth.
NOAA’s Space Weather Next program will maintain and extend critical space weather observations from various vantage points, providing comprehensive monitoring of the sun and the near-Earth space environment. Space weather refers to conditions in Earth’s space environment that may impact technological systems deployed in space or on the ground as well as cause health risks to astronauts in space.
NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) developed the Space Weather Next program in collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Its main goal is to provide the critical data needed by NOAA’s National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center to improve space weather forecasting and warnings.
The program and its related NOAA activities support key national directives, including:
- Ensuring American Space Superiority Executive Order (2025)
- Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act (2020)
- National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan (2019).
Space Weather Next program missions are a collaborative partnership between NOAA and NASA. NOAA funds, operates, and manages the mission, while NASA’s GSFC in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the acquisition of the Phase A Formulation contracts. By supplying operational space-based data, the Space Weather Next program will help sustain and fortify SWPC’s role as the nation’s official civilian source for space weather watches, warnings, alerts, and forecasts.
For more information about the Space Weather Next program, please visit: https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/future-programs/space-weather-next