Carruthers Geocorona Observatory

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]

Carruthers Geocorona Observatory

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

The mission name was given to honour Dr. George R. Carruthers, a pioneer American space physicist, engineer and investor. 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.