Session - SSA Space Weather Service Network

E. De Donder, M. Kruglanksi, A. Glover

The ESA Space Situational Awareness Programme supports networking, development and the ultimate utilization of European space weather (SWE) assets in order to provide timely space weather information, products and services to end users as well as user support. The SWE service network is centered around a number of Expert Service Centres (ESCs) and an overall Coordination Centre and helpdesk (SSCC).

Services are accessible via the SSA SWE Portal at http://swe.ssa.esa.int/ .

This session will concentrate on the current status of the SWE service network as well as on running and upcoming development plans. The session is open to all and contributions from the wider space weather community are welcome. We encourage end-users to present their specific SWE product/service needs which would help us to better tailor the network services for the different user domains.

Talks
Monday November 23, 14:30 - 15:30, Permeke
Monday November 23, 16:30 - 18:00, Permeke

Poster Viewing
Monday November 23, 15:30 - 16:30, Poster area

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Talks : Time schedule

Monday November 23, 14:30 - 15:30, Permeke

14:30	The SSA Space Weather Service Network in Period 2	Glover, A et al.	Oral
	A Glover[1], JP Luntama[2], R Keil[3], M Kruglanski[4], J Andries[5], N Crosby[4], C Borries[6], C Perry[7], D Martini[8]
	[1] ESA, SSA Preparatory Programme Office & RHEA System, Darmstadt; [2] ESA SSA Programme Office, Darmstadt; [3] ESA ESOC; [4] Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium; [5] Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium; [6] German Aerospace Center (DLR), 17235 Neustrelitz, Germany; [7] STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab; [8] Norwegian Center for Space Weather, Tromsø Geophysical Observatory
	The SSA Space Weather Service network is being developed to provide the (pre)operational services of the SSA Programme’s Space Weather Segment. In Period 2 of the Programme, its main elements consist of : • SSA Space Weather Coordination Centre • Expert Service Centres: Solar Weather, Heliospheric Weather, Space Radiation, Ionospheric Weather, Geomagnetic Conditions • SWE Datacentre: hosting SWE Portal, database and applications The network builds on the wealth of space weather assets and expertise already available in Europe through the adoption of a federated approach to service provision. According to this principle, most services and products included in the overall network catalogue are provided from their home institute as part of a distributed Expert Service Centre, via the SSA SWE Service Portal. In parallel, targeted developments have been initiated in priority areas in order to complete key gaps where critical building blocks may not yet be sufficiently mature for service provision, or sufficiently tailored to fully meet end user requirements. First line user support for all services and products is provided via the SSCC. This period of the SSA Programme has already seen rapid growth in the range of services and products available to end users. With the start of the P2-SWE-I: Expert Service Centres Definition and Development activity in 2015, the number of Expert Service Centres has increased from 4 to 5 with the addition of the Heliospheric Weather Expert Service Centre, and the overall number of products accessible for SWE users exceeds 150. As the Expert Service Centre teams embark on an intense 18month development, testing and validation period between now and the end of 2016, this presentation will discuss some of the foreseen highlights that will be the outcome of the SWE network over the coming period along with some of the upcoming challenges. SSA SWE Service Portal: http://swe.ssa.esa.int
14:40	SSA Space Radiation Expert Service Centre: Current and envisioned upcoming products and services	Crosby, N et al.	Invited Oral
	N. Crosby, M. Kruglanksi, M. Dierckxsens, E. De Donder
	Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium
	The role of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Space Radiation Expert Service Centre (ESC) is to ensure that space particle radiation is fully covered in the context of the SSA network in regard to the near-Earth space environment. This includes solar energetic particles, radiation belts, galactic cosmic rays, as well as the aspects of the space environment related to the ambient plasma, and micron-size particulates (from meteoroids and space debris). Induced effects by these phenomena on technology and biological systems are also covered. With expertise in the energetic particle space environment (science and applications) the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) has been the Coordinator of this ESC since it was set up during the Preparatory Phase of the SSA programme. In this presentation the current status of the SSA Space Radiation ESC as well as envisioned upcoming products and services in the framework of the P2-SWE-I Space Radiation ESC proposal will be presented. Specifically the challenge of covering the broad spectrum of the ESC and prioritizing gaps will be considered.
14:50	AVIDOS 2.0 – a software tool for Nowcasting Radiation Exposure at Flight Altitudes Caused by Cosmic Radiation during Solar Storms	Latocha, M et al.	Oral
	M. Latocha[1], H. Thommesen[1,2], R. Bütikofer[3], P. Beck[1]
	[1] Seibersdorf Laboratories, Forschungszentrum Seibersdorf, 2444 Seibersdorf, Austria; [2] Graz University of Technology, Institute for Material Physics, 8010 Graz, Austria; [3] International Foundation High Altitude Research Stations Jungfraujoch and Gornergrat, Sidlerstraße 5, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
	Solar storms are disturbed space weather conditions that occur due to solar phenomena like solar flares or coronal mass ejections. Some of these events may lead to an enhanced radiation level even on ground – so-called Ground Level Enhancements (GLE). The increase of radiation levels at flight altitudes during a GLE, although temporal, can be essential; therefore, it is of interest, in particular to aircraft crews, to assess the radiation exposure during such events by either measurements or calculations. AVIDOS (AVIation DOSimetry) is a web service of the Seibersdorf Laboratories federated with ESA’s Space Weather portal (http://swe.ssa.esa.int/). AVIDOS is an online, informational and educational software for the assessment of cosmic radiation exposure at flight altitudes. The newest version, AVIDOS 2.0, performs assessment of cosmic radiation due to galactic cosmic radiation and attempts to nowcast radiation exposure due to solar energetic particles. The solution developed by Seibersdorf Laboratories is based on a simulation model coupled with real-time data from Oulu neutron monitor station and real-time GLE-alerting service ANeMoS. We will present the status of AVIDOS 2.0 focusing on the new features for nowcasting the radiation exposure at flight altitudes during solar storms. The development of AVIDOS was supported by the European Space Agency (ESA Contract: No. 44000105734/12/D/MRP), the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport and Innovation, and the Austrian Agency for Aviation and Space (ALR) as part of the Austrian Promotion Agency, FFG.
15:00	Space Weather for Aviation	Sievers, K et al.	Invited Oral
	Klaus Sievers
	Vereinigung Cockpit (German Airline Pilots´ Association)
	Space weather describes the influence of cosmic radiation, particles and solar activity on the natural environment of the Earth and human technology. Solar storms can create unusually high levels of ionizing radiation, as well as electrically and magnetically charged particles. These effects can perturb the ionosphere , the magnetosphere and all radio-signals that depend on good reflective qualities of the ionosphere, or a calm ionosphere, as the case may be. Radiation levels can be a concern to crew, passengers and electronics as well. . A prime request pilots have of the scientific community is to provide reliable and timely warnings, so action can be taken if it is expected that space weather will affect health, navigation or communication for flights. As described above, the effects of space-weather can be of concern to pilots, airlines, passengers and air traffic control. This was recognized years ago by ICAO, and a general feeling of ´something needs to be done´ with regards to awareness, appropriate warnings and measures to be taken has resulted in an emerging ICAO framework for space weather . It´s a work in progress, and the talk will try to the present state of discussions from a pilots´ perspective.
15:10	Satellite Operator's Reaction to Space Weather Warnings: The Missing Link	Monham, A et al.	Invited Oral
	Andrew Monham
	EUMETSAT
	Satellite availability is paramount to the core mission success of EUMETSAT in providing meteorological data for global weather forecasting purposes. However, our satellites in LEO and GEO are sometimes susceptible to mission interruptions caused by the space environment, in particular from galactic cosmic radiation induced single event upsets, despite having been fitted with radiation hardened components. With little evidence of a correlation between such upsets and specific solar events experienced so far, operators risk failing to recognise and react to warnings of pending solar storms with the potential to cause signficant disuption to their satellite fleets. With reference to example prediction warnings available today, the missing link between the warning content and the operator need is identified. It is discussed what could be done to ensure the satellite operator community can make a clear risk assessment, recognise the outlier events and take any mitigating actions available to them. Inter-organisational sharing of threat information and risk assessments may also strengthen the global resilience to such solar events.
15:20	Impact of space weather on PROBA satellites, lessons learned and future needs	Ilsen, S et al.	Invited Oral
	Stijn Ilsen, Dennis Gerrits, Johan De Hert
	QinetiQ Space NV
	The PROBA satellites are small, low-cost platforms built by a consortium lead by QinetiQ Space. The PROBA family has currently 3 members in orbit. In 2001, PROBA-1 was launched as a technology demonstration mission. Since 2009, PROBA-2 joined as a solar observatory and flying 18 technology demonstration units (e.g. LEON2 processor, NAND flash, etc.). PROBA-V was launched in 2013, with a full-scale mission: to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet on an daily basis (+90% per day). All 3 PROBA satellites are still fully functional today and are controlled from the ESA ground centre in Redu (Belgium). They orbit the earth in LEO, which protects them from some radiation from the sun. There are however regions in the orbit (North Pole, South Pole, South Atlantic Anomaly), where radiation is more intense and where specific subsystems show effects of radiation. During the presentation, the impact of the in-orbit effects on the operations will be highlighted. In view of the PROBA-3 mission, which is having a highly elliptical orbit (600 - 60000 km), there will also be some recommendations for the required space weather information, both in the past and predictions for the next hours/days.

Monday November 23, 16:30 - 18:00, Permeke

16:30	The Solar Weather Expert Service Centre in the ESA-SSA-SWE network	Andries, J et al.	Invited Oral
	Jesse Andries
	Royal Observatory of Belgium
	This talk presents the current products and services of the Solar Weather Expert Service Centre and discusses the efforts in harmonizing, standardizing and documenting the existing services as well as the ongoing developments of new and enhanced services.
16:40	A Possible Osmosis between Existing and Future Products within the SSA/SWE Service Network	Georgoulis, M et al.	Oral
	Manolis K. Georgoulis
	Research Center for Astronomy and Applied Mathematics (RCAAM) of the Academy of Athens
	Space weather portals around the globe have evolved to provide a list of information services to visitors and end users. For the most part, however, these services are standalone, fragmented and independent from each other, even though the information they provide could conceivably be integrated into providing a far more complete picture of the specific space-weather area covered. Having contributed a solar flare forecasting service to the Solar Weather Expert Service Center of the SSA/SWE network, we examine how a forecasting service that relies on analysis of the latest solar observational data can be combined with other Solar Weather services that showcase these data and perform a nowcasting of flares and other eruptive phenomena, such as coronal mass ejections, or potentially eruptive features, such as solar filaments. The results of this exercise can be quite encouraging, with more detailed information provided to the end user, snapshot performance assessments of forecasting services made possible, or even the identification of cross-information patterns between services that could lead to an enhanced future predictive ability.
16:50	The ESC for Geomagnetic Conditions; Current status and future plans	Martini, D et al.	Invited Oral
	Daniel Martini, Magnar G. Johnsen, Chiara Argese, Massimo Di Loreto
	Norwegian Center for Space Weather, Tromsø Geophysical Observatory
	The Expert Service Center for Geomagnetic Conditions (G-ESC) has been coordinated by Tromsø Geophysical Observatory (TGO) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway since the beginning of the ESA SSA programme. TGO has recently established a consortium for providing relevant geomagnetic products and services within and beyond the framework of P2-SWE-I, in collaboration with the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), DTU Space-Technical university of Denmark, German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), Swedish Institute for Space Physics (IRF), and Polar Geophysical Institute (PGI) in Russia. This talk focuses on the current status of the G-ESC within the ESCs network and on those future steps that can ensure the further development and expansion of the G-ESC.
17:00	ESA SSA - Service Supporting Resource Exploitation System Operators (RESOSS)	Johnsen, M et al.	Oral
	Magnar G. Johnsen and Knut Stanley Jacobsen
	[1] Tromsø Geophysical Observatory; [2] Norwegian Mapping Authority
	As part of the ESA SSA program preparatory phase project Provision of Space Weather Additional Services (SN-VI) led by Rhea Group, Tromsø Geophysical Observatory and the Norwegian Mapping Authority have developed a Service Supporting Resource Exploitation System Operators (RESSOS). The RESSOS service provides near real-time information about geomagnetic disturbances which primarily affect directional drilling and aeromagnetic surveys, and ionospheric disturbances which primarily affect GNSS-based services. The RESOSS service provides these two independent service components as parts of a single service. RESOSS will be aimed at a broader user base, and introduces existing end users of the detailed service components to additional, available and related service components, which should be of interest and benefit to them. The rationale behind the effort as well as the complete service will be presented.
17:10	Power Grid operator requirements to space weather forecast	Ohnstad, T et al.	Invited Oral
	Kaare Rudsar, Trond M Ohnstad
	Statnett SF
	Statnett is the owner and operator of the Norwegian Power Grid. The transmission system voltages ranges from 132kV up to 420kV. The 420kV system covers all of Norway and consists of 10 000km of power lines and about 200 power transformers. The system have solid grounded neutrals and are susceptible to GIC during geomagnetic storms. The paper will present the requirements and expectations Statnett have to space weather forecast, related to early warning (5-3 days), forecast (3-1 days) and more detailed forecast (4-2 hours ). It will also explain why this information is useful to Statnett
17:20	Arctic Region Space Weather Customers and SSA Services	Høeg, P et al.	Invited Oral
	Per Høeg[1], Kirsti Kauristi[2], Peter Wintoft[3], Magnus Wik[3], Claudia Borries[4]
	[1] Technical University of Denmark (DTU), 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark; [2] Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), 00101 Helsinki, Finland; [3] Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), 22370 Lund, Sweden; [4] German Aerospace Center (DLR), 17235 Neustrelitz, Germany
	Arctic inhabitants, authorities, and companies rely strongly on precise localization information and communication covering vast areas with low infrastructure and population density. Thus modern technology is crucial for establishing knowledge that can lead to growth in the region. At the same time it is crucial for the development of the industrial sectors and transportation systems in the Arctic that the digital infrastructure for higher-level information are operating at the standards for modern industrial societies. This can only be done if the precision of the localization information and communication can be established without errors resulting from Space Weather effects. An ESA project have identified and clarified, how the products of the four ESA Space Weather Expert Service Centres (SWE) in the ESA Space Situational Awareness Programme (SSA), can contribute to the requirements of SSA services in Arctic, and how new products and services need to be developed and implemented in the roadmap of SWE for Arctic region network services. An important element in the project is the end-user requirements and needs in the public and commercial sector. A detailed user-survey and interviews with key-companies in the region have been performed. The outcome has been analysed in view of the present SWE system, and products and suggestions to a roadmap for the development of coming Arctic region SSA services, have been established.
17:30	Development of the Expert Service Center Ionospheric Weather within the Space Situation Awareness Programme	Borries, C et al.	Invited Oral
	Claudia Borries[1], Reidun Kittelsrud[2], Carlo Scotto[3], Beata Dziak-Jankowska[4], Per Hoeg[5], Kirsti Kauristie[6], Jan Lastovicka[7], Philippe Yaya[8]
	[1] German Aerospace Center; [2] Norwegian Mapping Authority; [3] Instituto Nationale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia; [4] Space Research Center Warsaw; [5] DTU Space - National Space Institute; [6] Finnish Meteorological Institute; [7] Institute of Atmospheric Physics; [8] CLS - Space Oceanography Division
	Disruptions of satellite missions and modern communication, navigation and remote sensing systems can be the consequence of perturbations in the ionosphere. Navigation signals transmitted by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are delayed, refracted and diffracted by the highly variable ionosphere affecting the accuracy, availability, continuity and integrity of GNSS signals. Since these services are relevant in diverse safety of life and precise positioning applications, detection, monitoring and prediction of ionospheric effects are important for mitigating related threats to human life and economy. A comprehensive system to monitor, predict and disseminate space weather information and alerts is currently being developed under the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). Within this activity, a dedicated space weather network is organized around internationally distributed Expert Service Centres (ESCs). Being part of this network, the ESC Ionospheric Weather comprises the expertise concerning space weather effects in the upper atmosphere, including the ionosphere, which is specifically applicable in the domains of space surveillance and tracking and transionospheric radio links. In this talk, we present an overview on the current status of the ESC Ionospheric Weather, the targeted end-user groups and the provided services and products. The initial product delivery, which was established in the Preparatory Phase of SSA, is being further developed as part of the recently started SSA Period 2. The planned coordination and development activities within the P2-SWE-I activity will be presented including the description of the contributing assets.
17:40	A Heliospheric Weather Expert Service Centre for the ESA SSA programme	Perry, C et al.	Invited Oral
	C. Perry[1], M. Gibbs[2], M. Temmer[3], V. Bothmer[4], V. Genot[5], D. Heynderickx[6], S. Poedts[7], S. Vennerstrom[8]
	[1] STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab; [2] UK Met Office; [3] Institute of Physics, University of Graz; [4] University of Goettingen; [5] IRAP; [6] DHConsultancy; [7] KU Leuven; [8] Technical University of Denmark
	For Period 2 of the European Space Agency (ESA) Space Situational Awareness (SSA) space weather programme (SWE) a new Expert Service Centre (ESC) covering the Heliospheric weather domain (H-ESC) is being established. The H-ESC will complement the four pre-existing ESCs by providing a set of services that will model, forecast and nearcast the effects of the solar wind, including the transient structures therein, as they propagate out from the Sun’s corona through the heliosphere. The H-ESC will be established on a rapid timescale such that the first pre-operational services will be available within six months of the kick-off. This will be achieved through the federation and harmonisation of existing services provided by the partner organisations. Over the longer term it is anticipated that the H-ESC will expand its services in line with the priorities of the SSA-SWE programme as defined by the SSA customer requirements and related documents. In particular H-ESC has been assigned responsibility for coordinating the general modelling, solar system mission design and solar system mission operations service areas within SSA-SWE. In this presentation we introduce the H-ESC and describe the services that are to be established within the context of the current activity.
17:50	The future role of the SWE Coordination Centre: review and recommendations	Devos, A et al.	Oral
	Andy Devos, P2-SWE-VI consortium, ESA SSA SWE team
	In the context of the SSA P2-SWE-VI project of ESA a task was carried out to formulate recommendations and requirements on the future role of the Space Weather Coordination Centre (SSCC). A review of the forecast capabilities in the European Space Weather landscape was held for several physical domains. The review included an assessment of the status of forecast assets and the available knowledge and expertise in European forecast centres. This process included the identification of gaps between currently available products and the user requirements. Several ideas were suggested for the potential role of the SSCC in the European Space Weather forecast community. The review reports were presented and discussed during a successful Forecast Capability Review meeting. The review results led to the establishment of a list of recommendations for the future role of the SSCC. The recommended contributions were defined in terms of interaction with users, support of the Expert Groups and identification of needs for new product developments, both on the short and long term. The requirements of the SSCC staff were listed in order to enable the establishment of its future operational role.

Posters

Monday November 23, 15:30 - 16:30, Poster area

1	PROBA2 a Space Weather Tool	West, M et al.	p-Poster
	Matthew J West
	Royal Observatory Belgium
	PROBA2 is an ESA micro-satellite launched on November 2, 2009. The science payload includes SWAP, an EUV imager and LYRA a solar UV radiometer. SWAP, is a compact EUV imager with a spectral band-pass centered on 17.4 nm and provides images of the low solar corona over a 54 by 54 arcmin field-of-view. LYRA acquires solar irradiance measurements at a high cadence in four broad spectral channels, from soft X-ray to MUV. PROBA2 was initially launched as a testbed for innovative technologies, and has since evolved into a ESA SSA space weather platform, providing observations for a suite of space weather tools. In this presentation I will discuss the observations made by PROBA2 and the advantages of such instruments, such as the large field of view of the SWAP detector which can aid feature tracking out to greater heights, and the CMOS design for observing flares. Secondly I will present a series of tools develped for use with PROBA2 to help space weather forecasting, such as the SoFAST the flare detection tool and the SSA flare tracking service.
2	Real-time flare detection and space weather activities at Kanzelhöhe Observatory	Pötzi, W et al.	e-Poster
	Werner Pötzi[1], Astrid Veronig[1,2], Manuela Temmer[2], Gernot Riegler[3], Thomas Pock[3,4], Wolfgang Hirtenfellner-Polanec[1], Ute Möstl[2], Dietmar Baumgartner[1]
	[1] Kanzelhöhe Observatory for Solar and Environmental Research, University of Graz; [2] Institute of Physics, University of Graz; [3] Institute for Computer Graphics and Vision, Graz University of Technology; [4] Safety and Security Department, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Vienna
	Kanzelhöhe Observatory (KSO) is the Austrian representative for the International Space Environment Service (ISES) and the European station for ground-based solar observations in the frame of ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Space Weather (SWE) programme. KSO regularly performs high-cadence full-disk observations of the solar chromosphere in the H-alpha and CaIIK spectral lines as well as the solar photosphere in white-light. A system for near real-time H-alpha image provision and for automatic flare detection and alerting was developed, and is provided at ESA's SSA Space Weather portal (swe.ssa.esa.int). We describe the image recognition algorithms developed, the implementation into the KSO H-alpha observing system and present the evaluation results of the real-time data provision and flare detection for a period of two years. Based on the experience and results of the last two years, we will discuss possible further developments of the system.
3	The role of UoA as expert group of the ESA SSA P2_SWE-1 program	Mavromichalaki, H et al.	p-Poster
	Helen Mavromichalaki, Maria Gerontidou, Pavlos Paschalis, Evangelos Paouris
	National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
	In the frame of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Program of the European Space Agency (ESA) the Space Weather Segment (SWE) aiming on comprehensive knowledge, detection and forecasting of space weather events, is defined. Within this segment in the particular section of Space Radiation the Athens Neutron Monitor Station (A.Ne.Mo.S) has been developed the Neutron Monitor (NM) Service, which is available via ESA portal (http://swe.ssa.esa.int/web/guest/space-radiation). The NM service consists of two distingue products: a) the multi-station interface, which provides an easy way to access the data that are stored in the Neutron Monitor Database (NMDB).The interface connects to the NMDB slave server located at the A.Ne.Mo.S. and b) the new ground level enhancement (GLE) alert system, named GLE alert Plus. The GLE alert Plus system relies upon the availability of high resolution data (e.g. with 1-min cadence rate) made available in the NMDB at every minute of time (e.g. 1-min resolution). When indentifying a clear enhancement in at least three neutron monitors distributed at different geographical points around the world within a narrow time window, a GLE Alert is marked. More specifically, the contribution of the UoA regards on the Development and Operation of Space Radiation Expert Group Centers (ESC), described as Task 3 in the Work Plan of ESA SSA P2_SWE-1 Program. The role of the UoA, as an expert group, is to maintain and operate the above mentioned two products as part of the SSA SWE federated network including incident management, service requests, access requests and provision for eventual service closure. Additionally, the production of monthly statistics about federated products including visit statistics, most popular product, user feedback or specific user interaction (e.g.outreach activity) is also planned. Finally, the UoA will support the execution of the service test campaign of in orbit environment and effects monitoring for spacecraft operation in low earth and geostationary orbit ( SCO/orb) as well as the service to airline (NSO/air).
4	New SWE Data Centre Tools Supporting the SSA SWE Service Network	Keil, R et al.	p-Poster
	Ralf Keil[1], Alexi Glover[3], Gian Maria Pinna[2], Miruna Stoicescu[4], JP Luntama[2]
	[1] ESA-ESOC; [2] ESA SSA Programme Office, Darmstadt; [3] ESA, SSA Preparatory Programme Office & RHEA System, Darmstadt;  [4] ESA SSA Programme Office & GMV, Darmstadt
	The Space Weather (SWE) Data Centre plays an important role in the SSA SWE network, as it hosts the SWE Portal with its services, the main SWE database and a number of dedicated applications. The current growth of ESA's SSA SWE system is expected to lead to a large increase of new products before the end of 2016, in addition to the 50+ products already available via the SWE Portal. This is expected to present considerable challenges in the navigation, easy access and manipulation of these data and products. SSA ground segment developments, running in parallel to the SSA SWE Expert Service Centres and associated product developments, target these issues and are focussed on developing supporting infrastructure which will greatly facilitate user access to the wide range of products and data available. Furthermore, as SSA moves into Period 3, it is anticipated that the SWE Data Centre will begin to host data from SSA hosted payload missions. This will require further development of the SWE Data Centre facilities and data access tools in order to support maximum timely availability of these data together with their use in both SSA SWE services and exploitation by the wider scientific community. The outcome of ongoing ground segment development activities will, in the short term, include improvements to the SWE Portal interface and browsing facilities such as: • Improvements in the storage of and access to data within the SWE Data Centre and related analysis capability, • Upgrades to SWE Data Centre hosted applications including SEISOP, SEDAT and EDID. This presentation will provide an overview of ongoing developments and will describe essential innovations which form an integral part of the next upgrade to the SWE Data Centre. In turn, this upgrade is expected to provide further opportunities for the European space weather community to access and work with SWE data and products.
5	SWTK - The Space Weather Analysis and Visualisation Toolkit	Lawrence, G et al.	e-Poster
	Gareth Lawrence[1], Nicola Di Giorgio[1], Jurgen Watermann[1], Karim Zidoune[1], Simon Reid[1], Alexi Glover[2], Ralf Keil[2]
	[1] RHEA; [2] ESA-ESOC
	The SWTK is a Space Weather Analysis and Visualisation Toolkit being developed by RHEA for ESA within the Space Situational Awareness programme. SWTK provides users with an interactive and customisable set of tools to simultaneously display and analyse numerical data in time-series format alongside images, movies and other processed data products. This unique new design enables users to, for example, study and understand SWE events in their full overall context within the Sun-Earth system. To facilitate the simultaneous analysis of data and products - which are fundamentally different - the SWTK uses two distinct technologies embedded within a user-friendly interface, then individually configured to optimise the user experience. Measurement data are rendered by a state-of-the-art Charting library while the images, movies and other products are pinned to a Timeline tool. Both are customisable and user-interactive, and the Charts and Timelines can interact with one another. One of the SWTK design drivers is speed: SWTK is quick to learn and easy to use. This makes it of great use to Forecasters, for whom timeliness is critically important. However, SWTK is not aimed solely at forecasters and its general functionality and user-friendly, modular and extendable design will appeal to a wide range of users. The presentation will conclude with a real-time demonstration (time permitting) to showcase SWTK design and functionality. SWTK is developed within the SN-VI project, under ESA contract number 4000109521/13/D/MRP.