missions

DSCOVR

DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) is a NASA/NOAA Earth and space-weather observatory positioned at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million km from Earth. Launched 11 February 2015 on a SpaceX Falcon 9, the satellite is a refurbished version of the original Triana spacecraft. NOAA operates the spacecraft and its space-weather instruments; NASA operates the two Earth-facing science instruments EPIC and NISTAR.^[1]^[2]

The Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) captures 10-band spectral images of the full sunlit Earth disk, supporting vegetation mapping, tropospheric trace-gas column retrieval, and aerosol monitoring.^[3] The National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR) measures absolute broadband solar-reflected and Earth-emitted irradiance from the complete sunlit face of the planet, contributing to Earth radiation budget science.^[4]

The mission also carries a fluxgate magnetometer and charged-particle instruments (an electron spectrometer and a Faraday Cup) for upstream solar-wind plasma and interplanetary magnetic field monitoring, feeding operational NOAA space-weather products. WMO OSCAR lists the mission status as operational with an expected service life extending to at least 2029.^[5]

Full specification

All fields

current status	Operational
operator	National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
launch vehicle	Spacex Falcon 9
Launched	2015-02-11
planned decommission	2029-12-31
orbit type	Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million km from Earth
tasking supported	No
archive depth years	10
current geographic priority	Full sunlit Earth disk and upstream solar-wind monitoring

Supply chain position

carries instrument Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC)

carries instrument NIST Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR)

carries instrument DSCOVR Magnetometer (MAG)

carries instrument DSCOVR Electron Spectrometer (ES)

carries instrument DSCOVR Faraday Cup (FC)

operated by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

launched on Spacex Falcon 9

related to Earth radiation budget

related to Stratospheric ozone

related to Air quality

Vegetation index mapping → demonstrated Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC)

Multispectral optical imaging → demonstrated Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC)

Broadband radiometry → demonstrated NIST Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR)

Satellite magnetometry → demonstrated DSCOVR Magnetometer (MAG)

Sources

[1]NOAA NESDIS: DSCOVRagency doc2026-06-14
[2]NASA Earthdata: DSCOVRagency doc2026-06-14
[3]NASA GSFC: EPIC instrumentagency doc2026-06-14
[4]WMO OSCAR: NISTARagency doc2026-06-14
[5]WMO OSCAR: DSCOVRagency doc2026-06-14

Cite https://eo-atlas.org/missions/dscovr Markdown twin → Field definitions → Suggest a correction →

How to cite this page

Plain text

DSCOVR. EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V. https://eo-atlas.org/missions/dscovr (CC BY 4.0)

BibTeX

@misc{eoatlas:missions:dscovr,
  title = {DSCOVR},
  author = {{EO-Atlas}},
  publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
  url = {https://eo-atlas.org/missions/dscovr}
}