New Tool Might Help Preserve Sensitive Spacecraft And Satellites

Did you know there is "weather" in space? Well if you didn't, now you do, and the European Space Agency (ESA) is working on a tool to monitor and possibly even predict it.

Why you say? Because if a satellite encounters high-energy particles or other space weather phenomena before ground controllers can take action, on-board electronics could be disrupted, scientific instruments damaged and, in very rare and extreme cases, spacecraft may even be lost.

Since early 2005, Space Environment Information System for Operations (SEISOP), the ESA's space-weather monitoring and forecasting tool under development at its Space Operations Centre, has been successfully providing near-real-time space weather reports for Integral, ESA's gamma-ray space observatory.

Space weather data gathering isn't the sole province of ESA spacecraft. Some of the data comes from NASA and US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spacecraft, while other observations come from numerous ground-based institutes and facilities. SEISOP is a member of the Space Weather European Network, or SWENET.

One of the most dangerous space weather phenomena is that involving solar activity (example of charted data above), which influences our entire solar system in several ways. Our sun can generate streams of fast-moving energetic particles and sudden bursts of damaging X-rays during solar flares. Energetic cosmic rays from elsewhere in the galaxy also penetrate our solar system. ESA says space weather accounts for much of the abnormal behavior and aging for spacecraft and their sensitive scientific instruments.

Developed in collaboration with the ESA Space Weather Applications Pilot Project with funding from the Portuguese Task Force at ESA, SEISOP comprises a database of spacecraft health records and worldwide space weather observations, combined with sophisticated software applications that provide reporting, warning, forecasting and history tracking for the Integral Flight Control Team.

"Space weather affects spacecraft in many ways. There can be random lost data, changes in orbit dynamics and reduced quality of science data. Therefore, real-time updates are essential when deciding how long to shut down instruments during hazardous periods," says Alessandro Donati, Head of ESOC's Advanced Mission Concepts and Technologies office.

SEISOP enables mission controllers to predict when they should shut down instruments such as star trackers, place systems into 'safe mode' or take other action to protect sensitive on-board electronics and scientific sensors in the event of violent solar flare activity like that pictured above from last year.

While some instruments are equipped to automatically shut down during adverse periods, not all are and bringing an instrument back into service after an automated shut down is time consuming. Further, it has until now been difficult to know when radiation had fallen to safe levels, once an event like a solar flare had taken place.

According to the ESA, this year SEISOP will enter operational development aimed at providing all ESA missions with the same vital space weather updates.

"We expect to start work this year to create the final operational version. SEISOP can potentially provide warning services not only within ESA but also to space agencies worldwide, since space weather can affect any spacecraft," says Donati.

FMI: www.esa.int