Session P2 - Exploring Multi-Spacecraft Space Weather Monitoring

Colin Forsyth (UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory), Malcolm Dunlop (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory), Melanie Heil (ESA)

The Sun-Earth system is hugely under-sampled. Earth’s magnetosphere, typically encompassing a volume of over a quadrillion cubic kilometres, is monitored by a handful of spacecraft at any given time. Advanced warning of the incoming solar wind is currently provided by a few spacecraft orbiting the Sun-Earth L1 point. Despite these limitations, we have built a plethora of empirical and physics-based models as well as human expertise for space weather forecasting. More observations will improve our understanding and ability to forecast space weather, through improvements to models and data assimilation, but what level of ‘multi-point’ is appropriate and how do we make best use of this information? Scientific multi-spacecraft missions such as Cluster, THEMIS, MMS, Swarm and STEREO have greatly enhanced our knowledge of the dynamics of the magnetosphere and the solar wind, especially when used together. However, detailed analysis and understanding of these data takes a lot of time and effort. How multi-point do we have to go to provide both the necessary databases for model development and the inputs to forecasting, what are the implications for orbital traffic, and how best do we make use of existing multi-point datasets and techniques in space weather?

Poster Viewing
Thursday October 27, 08:30 - 13:30, Poster Area

Talks
Friday October 28, 08:45 - 10:15, Water Hall

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Talks : Time schedule

Friday October 28, 08:45 - 10:15, Water Hall

08:45	Introduction	,	Oral
08:47	The ESA Heliophysics Working Group: building cross discipline bridges to better serve the Space Weather community	Taylor, M et al.	Invited Oral
	Matt Taylor [1], Piers Jiggens[1], Juha-Pekka Luntama [2], Astrid Orr[1],Anja Stømme[3]
	[1]ESA/ESTEC [2]ESA/ESOC [3]ESA/ESOC
	Heliophysics, the science of understanding the Sun and its interaction with the Earth and the solar system, has a large and active international community, with significant expertise and heritage in the European Space Agency and Europe. Several ESA directorates have activities directly connected with this topic, including ongoing and/ or planned missions and instrumentation, comprising a ESA Heliophysics observatory or more musically, a Heliophysics Orchestra: The Directorate of Science with mission such as Ulysses, SOHO, Cluster, Solar Orbiter, SMILE etc, as well as hosting the Heliophysics archive; The Directorate of Earth Observation with Swarm and other Earth Explorer missions, as well as the ongoing ESA-NASA Lower Thermosphere-Ionosphere Science Working Group (EN-LoTIS-WG); The Directorate of Operations with the L5 mission, Distributed Space Weather Sensor System (D3S) and the Space Weather Service Network; The Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration with many ISS and LOP-Gateway payloads and the Directorate of Technology, Engineering Quality with expertise in developing instrumentation and models for measuring and simulating environments throughout the heliosphere. The Heliosphere acts as a “System of Systems”. For the near Earth component, Geospace, each component from the solar wind to the magnetotail, inner magnetosphere (itself a system of systems with plasmasphere, ring current, and radiation belts), magnetopause, magnetosheath, and ionosphere-thermosphere-mesosphere (another system of systems) – has its own dynamics and characteristics that can be, and have been, studied separately. The science of these studies has also provided valuable input into the operational applied science of Space weather. An ESA Heliophysics Working group has been appointed by several ESA Directors, under the direction of the ESA Director General, to work on optimizing synergies across directorates, and to act as a focus for discussion, inside ESA, of the scientific interests of the Heliophysics community, including the European ground-based community and data archiving activities. This talk will introduce the ESA Helio-WG and provide a taste of how our activities can (hopefully) benefit space weather community in Europe.
09:12	Monitoring of the Aurora and its origin by a multi-spacecraft constellation	Kraft, S et al.	Oral
	Stefan Kraft
	ESA
	In the frame of the development of ESA's enhanced space weather monitoring system, ESA and its international partners are planning to implement a multi-spacecraft observing system that shall monitor the space weather conditions covering the Sun, the interplanetary space and the Earth environment. The objective of monitoring the actual status in the proximity of the Earth shall be achieved by the implementation of a Distributed Space Weather Sensor System (D3S) that shall consist of an optimised multi-spacecraft observing system composed of several small spacecraft constellations made up by CubeSats, NanoSats and SmallSats that shall be deployed in the near-term future and maintained on a long-term perspective. The monitoring of the Aurora and the underlying particle interactions that are related to its generation is one of the major monitoring requirements. ESA is therefore planning to implement a dedicated mission, the AURORA mission, consisting in its final configuration of a small satellite constellation that shall enable the imaging of the entire Auroral Oval with short refresh rates as a primary objective, and as far as opportune, as secondary objective, perform in-situ monitoring of the environment to provide valuable context data that will improve our space weather now- and forecasting capabilities. ESA and its industrial partners have explored the most suitable small satellite constellations and required instrumentation that are most promising for achieving these objectives. We will present the outcome of the analyses, the current most promising multi-satellite mission architectures, and highlight the observational constraints. This will include an outline of the measurement concepts, the expected mission performance, the baselined instrumentation, and our future plans.
09:27	NOAA’s Space Weather Next Generation Observation Architecture	Azeem, I et al.	Oral
	Irfan Azeem[1], Dimitrios Vassiliadis[1], Joanne Ostroy[2], Susan Jacobs[1], Elsayed Talaat[1], and Richard Ullman[1]
	[1]NOAA, [2]MITRE
	Two key aspects of NOAA's mission are to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment and to share that knowledge and information with users in public, private, and academic sectors. NOAA’s environmental monitoring capabilities, both present and planned, include space weather measurements. These observations of space weather events are critical for producing accurate space weather forecasts and predictions. NOAA is also taking steps to respond to the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act, which directs NOAA to sustain and advance critical operational space weather observations. To execute space weather activities outlined in the PROSWIFT Act, NOAA has identified space weather as a new strategic priority. The agency is developing its next generation space weather satellite observing system architecture and identifying its baseline operational observation capability to ensure availability of reliable space weather observations from the Sun to Earth. Various mission and instrument studies are underway to inform the design of NOAA’s space weather satellite next generation (SW Next) observation system architecture. In this presentation, we describe NOAA’s planned activities for providing sustained operational space weather observations utilizing different instruments in a variety of orbits on multiple platforms.
09:42	An interactive viewer application for real-time space weather monitoring and historical case studies	Doornbos, E et al.	Oral
	Eelco Doornbos[1], Mark ter Linden[2], Kasper van Dam[1], Bert van den Oord[1]
	[1]Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI); [2]S&T Corp
	Operational monitoring and scientific exploration in the field of space weather are based on a large quantity and variety of observations and model outputs. At the same time, all space weather domains, such as the Sun, heliosphere and geospace, are severely under-sampled. Making the best possible use of space weather observations requires advanced tools. We have recently focussed our efforts on the development of a next generation open source tool for the visual display of space weather information. The tool is centred on an interactive zoomable timeline and this enables the user to quickly and easily navigate between events in time. The user can arrange selections from a large variety of observations, model output and event data together on screen. This makes it easier to investigate and demonstrate connections between events. The tool displays richly formatted time series and symbols for events, as well as image sequences for displaying imaging instrument data, geographical maps or heat maps. The user interface is implemented using the latest web technologies, making it possible to set up a responsive interface on any platform, from large multi-screen workstations for operational monitoring, to handheld mobile devices. Thanks to the use of emerging community efforts and standards, such as the Python in Heliophysics Community projects (PyHC) and the Heliophysics Data Application Programmer’s Interface (HAPI), information from a large number of sources can be readily displayed, while additional sources can be added with a relatively small development effort. Already implemented sources include satellite missions (ACE, DSCOVR, GOES, Swarm), models (WSA-ENLIL, WAM-IPE, MSIS), ground magnetometer indices, GNSS receivers and ICAO advisory histories. Our presentation will showcase the features of the application based on a number of use cases, including the monitoring of current space weather conditions, validation of ICAO advisories and exploration of past space weather impact events, such as the February 2022 loss of Starlink satellites.
09:57	Discussion	,	Oral
10:07	Summary	,	Oral

Posters

1	The GOES-R and Future SWFO-L1 Space Weather Missions	Loto'aniui, P et al.	Poster
	Paul T.M. Loto’aniu[1,2]
	[1]CIRES-University of Colorado, [2]NCEI-NOAA
	The NOAA-NASA GOES-R mission provides continuous space weather monitoring of the inner magnetosphere at GEO orbit, while the future NASA-NOAA Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) L1 mission will provide solar wind measurements and corona imaging. Data from these two missions are and will be used by NOAA for space weather forecasting. In this presentation we give an overview of these two missions and the multi-point space weather observational capabilities possible through combination of the two mission datasets. We also explain how users can access the GOES-R dataset through the NOAA-NCEI DSCOVR portal.
2	Plasmapause evolution from 7th to 9th September 2017 deduced from Van Allen Probes	Ivanković, L et al.	Poster
	Ljiljana Ivanković [1], Mario Bandić [2], Giuliana Verbanac [3]
	[1] University of Applied Sciences Velika Gorica, [2] Zagreb Astronomical Observatory, [3] Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb
	Plasmasphere is a region of cold dense plasma in the inner magnetosphere. Its outer boundary, plasmapause is characterized by a steep fall in particle density over a short distance. There are different views on plasmapause formation, and one of the questions is whether plasmapause reacts to solar wind drivers simultaneously in all magnetic local times (MLTs) or not. Here, we analyze changes in plasmaspheric electron density profiles in the period from 7th to 9th September 2017, that encompasses geomagnetic storm caused by two successive coronal mass ejections. Electron densities are derived from measurements by Van Allen Probes, a two-spacecraft mission. Profiles are first divided into two different MLT sectors, morning and afternoon, and are compared to the changes in geomagnetic index Kp. We found that the plasmapause response to the Kp increase in the afternoon MLT sector lags behind the morning sector by roughly 6 hours, indicating that the plasmapause is not formed in all MLTs simultaneously. The results add values for space weather since the plasmapause mark the limit between completely different plasma environments.
3	Imaging the Sources of Solar Type-III Radio Bursts during the Parker Solar Probe Encounter 2	Nedal, M et al.	Poster
	Mohamed Nedal1, Kamen Kozarev1, Peijin Zhang1, Pietro Zucca2
	1Institute of Astronomy of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2ASTRON Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands
	The generation of solar radio bursts in the solar atmosphere is governed by the plasma conditions and the magnetic field configuration and strength in the corona. Since observations below ~20 MHz cannot be observed from the ground, it is important to combine high- and low-frequency observations from the ground and space. Besides, the ground-based Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) imaging observations provide valuable insight into the actual location of the burst sources. In this work, we perform a study of several type-III radio bursts detected by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) during Encounter 2, combined with LOFAR observations. First, we performed data pre-processing of the PSP (2.6 kHz – 18 MHz) and LOFAR (20 – 90 MHz) dynamic spectra to resample, and shift the data based on the relative location of the spacecraft with respect to the Sun and Earth. We then combined the high- and low-frequency dynamic spectra together to study the solar radio emissions within the frequency range 2.6 kHz – 90 MHz. We performed automatic detection of the type-III bursts in the dynamic spectra and extracted frequency drift and speed information about the sources of emissions in the corona. In addition, we imaged the sources of type III emission at multiple frequency bands using the interferometric observations from LOFAR to provide the locations and kinematics of the sources in the corona.
5	The February 2022 Starlink Loss Event and the Need for Improved Orbital Space Weather Forecasting and Nowcasting	Berger, T et al.	Poster
	Thomas Berger [1], Marie Dominique [2] , Greg Lucas [1,3], Marcin Pilinski [1,3], Vishal Ray [1,4], Robert Sewell [3], Eric Sutton [1], Jeffrey Thayer [1], Edward Thiemann [3]
	[1] University of Colorado at Boulder, Space Weather Technology, Research, and Education Center, [2] Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Uccle, Belgium, [3] University of Colorado at Boulder, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, [4] University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research,
	We investigate the thermospheric neutral density enhancements in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) that occurred during and after the 03 February 2022 launch of 49 SpaceX Starlink satellites. Thirty-eight of the satellites re-entered the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean near Puerto Rico on 07 February 2022 due to excessive satellite drag from two minor geomagnetic storms on 03 and 04 February. High Accuracy Satellite Drag Model (HASDM) analysis as well as direct density measurements from the LYRA instrument on the PROBA2 satellite verify that the neutral density enhancements at 200 km on 03 and 04 February 2022 were between 20–30% higher than density values averaged over the 9 days prior to the launch. GRACE-FO accelerometer-derived mass density values at 500 km, near the operational altitude of the Starlink constellation, show peak enhancements of 94% and 163% for the two storms, respectively. We model the impacts on a Starlink-like satellite as a function of altitude for both G1 (minor) and G5 (extreme) geomagnetic storms using the HASDM, JB08, and MSISE-00 empirical models to illustrate that the JB08 and MSISE-00 models, which lack the the data assimilation capabilities of HASDM, fail to capture the density enhancements of extreme storms and can lead to in-track orbit propagation errors on the order of 1000 km at lower LEO altitudes. We conclude that there is critical need for: (1) a fully-coupled, data assimilative, model of the magnetosphere-ionosphere/thermosphere/mesosphere (M-ITM) system, (2) more sophisticated pre-launch space weather briefings, and (3) constellations of small satellites providing direct thermospheric density and temperature measurements in LEO in near-real-time to enable decision-relevant nowcasts for launch controllers, space traffic managers, and satellite operators.
6	NOAA’s Compact Coronagraph Instrument for the ESA VIGIL Mission	Wang, N et al.	Poster
	Nai-Yu Wang1, Doug Biesecker1, Irfan Azeem1, Rich Ullman1, Elsayed Talaat1, Damien Chua2, Arnaud Thernisien2
	1. NOAA NESDIS Office of Projects, Planning, and Analysis 2. U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
	One of the major drivers of space weather is coronal mass ejections (CMEs). NOAA is supporting development of the next-generation coronagraph instrument, called the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR). The CCOR is designed to detect halo coronal mass ejection that is Earth-directed. Coronagraph images are essential inputs to current operational numerical models that predict the arrival of a CME at Earth. Three state of the art CCOR instruments are being developed for NOAA by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). The first CCOR instrument (CCOR-1) will be flown in a Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) on NOAA’s GOES-U spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 2024. The second CCOR instrument (CCOR-2) will be flown on the Space Weather Follow On mission to the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (SWFO-L1) to be launched as a rideshare with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission in 2025. A third CCOR (CCOR-3) will be deployed as a NOAA contribution to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Vigil mission to the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 5 (L5) in the 2027-2028 timeframe. CCOR-3 is currently in phase-A requirement definition stage to achieve the desirable comparable performance characteristics with regard to cadence and angular resolution as CCOR-2 on SWFO-L1. Coordinated and concurrent coronagraph observations from L1 and L5 vantage points will improve the 3D characterization of CMEs. In this presentation, we will describe the CCOR-3 coronagraph design and expected performances.
7	In-situ Energetic Electron Flux Measurements using KSEM PD on GK-2A Geostationary Satellite	Oh, D et al.	Poster
	Daehyeon Oh[1], Jiyoung Kim[1]
	[1]1National Meteorological Satellite Center, Korea Meteorological Administration
	The Particle Detector (PD) of the Korea Space Environment Monitor (KSEM) aboard the GEO-KOMPSAT-2A (GK2A) has been measured energetic particle flux in geostationary orbit at the longitude of 128.2°E, since July 2019. KSEM PD consists of 6 sets of electron and proton sensors, and they provide near-real-time particle flux with energy range of 100 keV-2 MeV. It provides near-real-time energetic particle flux condition of space environment on the location where is nearly opposite side to the location of GOES-16 satellite. Here, we report on the recent energetic electron flux measurements of KSEM PD and the initial results of cross-comparisons with the data from MPS-Hi, a particle detector of GOES-16, and brief review on electron flux responses of KSEM PD and MPS-Hi to enhanced space environment conditions.
8	Coordination of ground based and in orbit multipoint measurements: comparison of magnetospheric and ground currents	Dunlop, M et al.	Poster
	Malcolm Dunlop[1,2], Xiangcheng Dong[1], Dong Wei[3], Xin Tan[2], Jennifer Carter[4], Junying Yang[2], J. and Chao Xiong[5]
	[1]RAL_Space, STFC, Chilton, Oxfordshire, OX11 0QX, UK (*Email: m.w.dunlop@rl.ac.uk); [2]School of Space and Environment, Beihang University, 100191, Beijing, China; [3]Southern University of Science and Technology, China; [4]University of Leicester, Leicester, UK; [5]Department of Space Physics Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China.
	The behaviour of field-aligned current sheets (FACs) connecting different regions of the magnetosphere can be explored by multi-spacecraft measurements, both at low (LEO) and high altitudes (e.g. the current distributions between the magnetopause and ring current, mapping to (sub-)auroral boundaries). Such distributed measurements could be combined with future SMILE imaging and in situ data and are also enhanced by distributed LEO coverage, such as is planned with NanoMagSat. Individual events, sampled by higher altitude spacecraft (e.g. Cluster, MMS), in conjunction with Swarm satellites, show coherent FAC scaling, for example, and large and small-scale (MLT) trends in FAC orientation can be inferred from dual-spacecraft (e.g. the Swarm A&C spacecraft) correlations. Conjugate effects seen between ground magnetic signals (e.g. dH/dt, as a proxy for GICs) and spacecraft (e.g. Cluster/Swarm) show intense variations can take place in the main phase of a geomagnetic storm (e.g. as cusp response) and during active sub-storms (e.g. as driven by arrival of bursty bulk flows, BBF). The most intense dH/dt can be shown to be associated with FACs, driven by BBFs at geosynchronous orbit (via a modified substorm current wedge, SCW), but such conjunctions are rare with limited spacecraft. In situ ring current (RC) morphology can be investigated by MMS, THEMIS and Cluster, using the multi-spacecraft curlometer method, and can be linked to LEO signals via R2-FACs and effects on the geomagnetic field. The in situ measurements suggest the RC is typically a superposition of an outer westward ring current, dominating the dawn-side, and closing banana currents dominating the afternoon and night-side sectors. The transport relationship via (R2) FACs can be better investigated with more spacecraft at LEO.
9	Temporal evolution and spatial variation of the solar wind structures throughout the heliosphere	Biro, N et al.	Poster
	Nikolett Biró[1,2], Andrea Opitz[1], Anikó Timár[1], Zoltán Németh[1], Gergely Kobán[1,2], Ákos Madár[1,2], Zsuzsanna Dálya[1], Péter Kovács[1]
	[1]Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungary, [2]Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary
	The scarcity of available in-situ measurements of the background solar wind poses a challenge in building physics-based models. In order to improve the predictions of the plasma environment at planets, moons, comets, and interplanetary spacecraft, we study the temporal evolution and spatial variation of solar wind structures through a multi-spacecraft investigation. Emphasis is placed on the effects of latitudinal differences, which are investigated by using recent mission results in the analysis, such as Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter. A study of the propagation and evolution of fast and slow solar wind stream interaction regions is performed. Ballistic radial propagation models are refined by pressure correction at SIRs. We improve solar wind predictions by removing ICME signatures from the input data to reduce the number of false alarms. The results will be useful for further analysis of inner heliospheric structures, for the improvement of propagation models, and to support the analysis of out-of-ecliptic solar wind observations.
10	Deflection/Rotation of Earth directed CMEs in the vicinity of Coronal Hole	Karuppiah, S et al.	Poster
	Suresh Karuppiah, Mateja Dumbovic, Karmen Martinic
	Hvar Observatory, Faculty of Geodesy, University of Zagreb
	Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the major eruptive phenomena in the solar atmosphere. They cause various space weather effects and may cause severe geomagnetic storms when their arrival at Earth is accompanied by a special magnetic configuration. CMEs can be deflected by coronal holes away or towards the Sun-Earth line depending on their relative location. In addition, high speed streams originating from coronal holes can influence CME propagation. We aim to analyze CME evolution in the vicinity of coronal hole to better understand these effects. We present the investigation of 61 Earth-directed CMEs from 2008 to 2020 based on the Richardson-Cane catalogue. We use the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) images of wavelength 193Å and 304Å onboard Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) to check the signatures of associated solar flares, filament eruptions and coronal holes. In addition, we use white light data of coronagraphic observations by LASCO onboard SOHO and SECCHI/COR onboard STEREO. For all 60 events, we identify clear location of the eruption on the solar disc and also we check whether or not there is a coronal hole present at the distance <50 degrees. We analyze the deflection/rotation of CMEs by tracking them in COR1 and COR2 field of view of STEREO onboard SECCHI with the help of 3D reconstruction Graduated cylindrical shell (GCS) model. Also, we use CATCH tool to study the nearby coronal hole parameters. Our aim is to study how a coronal hole causes deflection/rotation of CMEs in the corona and also to study how some Earth-directed events miss the Spacecraft at L1 or observed as ejecta.
11	Developing Models for the Waves in the Inner Magnetosphere Using Data from Multi-Spacecraft	Wang, D et al.	Poster
	Dedong Wang[1], Yuri Shprits[1,2,3]
	[1]GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany; [2]University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany; [3]University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
	The highly energetic electrons in the Earth’s radiation belts can be hazardous to Earth-orbiting satellites and astronauts in space. Many of the space systems on which modern human society depends operate in this region. The fluxes of energetic electrons in the radiation belts are very dynamic, which is not fully understood due to the delicate balance between various acceleration and loss processes. Wave-particle interactions are believed to play a crucial role in the acceleration and loss of these particles. To quantify the effect of different waves on the dynamics of radiation belt electrons, comprehensive wave models are needed. Currently, there are some wave models based on satellite measurements. However, the space coverage of these wave models is not sufficient due to the orbit limit of satellites. The inter-calibration between the wave measurements from different satellites is very important. In this poster, we will show our effort of combining state-of-the-art measurements from multiple satellites to develop comprehensive wave models. We analyze the statistical characteristics of the measurements from different satellites and see whether there is systematic bias over the same long-term interval (at least years). This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 870452 for the PAGER project.