Space Weather Resilience: Role of International Cooperation and Research To Prepare the World for Solar Storms

With the rise of systems in space, it is crucial to know more about space weather and how it could affect several systems across the Earth and out in space.

Space Weather

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs explains that space weather is mainly due to solar variability. It could, in turn, affect human space flight, radiocommunications, space systems, signals of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), and passenger well-being in aircraft that are soaring over high altitudes. As such, several magnetic storms led to failures in several geostationary-orbit communication satellites. They also lead to power outages and radio blackouts on the planet.

Having the capacity to predict how space weather will fare can significantly aid in forecasting, preventing, and reducing the effects of strong magnetic storms on systems on the ground or in space.

Global Space Weather Centers

With this, international efforts involving cooperation, research, and developments are vital for each and every nation, owing to the boosted involvement of all countries in outer space utilization for purposes of peace and to the high costs that come with conducting such activities.

This is the foundation behind the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI), which launched in 2009 and was formally concluded as an agenda item in 2012. The initiative involved global cooperation to further the science of space weather. It covered a mix of space weather data analysis and instrument deployment.

The World Meteorological Organization also explains that since November 2019, there have been Global Space Weather Centers that have been offering information to the ICAO, or International Civil Aviation Organization. The council of ICAO designated specific space weather centers to track and offer advisory data regarding space weather conditions that could affect systems on Earth and space.

This global aviation space weather network offers real-time global space weather updates for general and commercial aviation. It offers advisories based on the data that the dedicated space weather centers have collected. The advisories get delivered to airliners through the aeronautical fixed network used for international aviation.

Such advisories should only be issued in cases of extremely strong space weather events. The PECASUS consortium explains on their website that in 2022 there were roughly 140 actual SWX advisories that were globally published to aviation users through the network of ICAO.

The network covers the ACFJ consortium (Japan, France, Canada, and Australia), the PECASUS consortium (Poland, the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Cyprus), NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, and the CRC consortium (China, Russia).

All centers conduct space weather monitoring activities in two-week shifts. One center, however, works as the ODC (On Duty Center), while the others serve as Secondary and Primary backup centers as well as the maintenance center.

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