NASA’s Libera instrument completes testing and is ready for delivery

NASA reported Jan. 30, 2026, that its Libera instrument has completed comprehensive environmental testing, including thermal vacuum tests that simulate the space temperatures and environments it will experience, and is ready for delivery. Libera is slated to fly on the Joint Polar Satellite System-4 (JPSS-4) satellite, which is targeted for launch in 2027 and will be named NOAA-22 once in orbit, according to the article.

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics developed and built Libera after it was selected as the first Earth Venture Continuity mission, a NASA program focused on low-cost ways to maintain important Earth science measurements. NASA says Libera is designed to maintain the global data record of Earth’s radiation budget, continuing the series of Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments that began on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission in 1997 and continued on Terra, Aqua, Suomi NPP, and NOAA-20; the instrument’s name is a nod to that lineage, taken from the daughter of Ceres in Roman mythology.

Libera will be the fifth and final instrument delivered to Northrop Grumman in Gilbert, Arizona, for installation on JPSS-4. The other instruments onboard JPSS-4 are the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, the Cross-track Infrared Sounder, the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder, and the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite.

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