Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center

New center will lay groundwork for better space weather forecasts

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 17:12:29 +0000

New center will lay groundwork for better space weather forecasts Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/25/2023 - 11:12

A new center led by CU �鶹ӰԺ will undertake research to make the region of space between Earth and the moon a little safer—potentially helping satellites navigate through this tumultuous and sometimes hazardous environment.

This summer, NASA announced that it had selected four Space Weather Centers of Excellence, including the Space Weather Operational Readiness Development (SWORD) center at CU �鶹ӰԺ. As its name suggests, the nearly $10 million center will offer some powerful protection for the planet: SWORD research will seek to help scientists develop more accurate and timely conditions of the “space weather” hundreds of miles above the surface of Earth—where impacts from solar storms can increase the risk of satellite collisions and interfere with communications and navigation.

Tom Berger

SWORD emerged from the Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center (SWx TREC), which was funded through the CU �鶹ӰԺ Grand Challenge initiative “Our Space. Our Future.” SWORD is a university-wide effort, tapping expertise from the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences; Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES); and Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).

“This important award is the result of years of investment and collaboration across our campus,” said Massimo Ruzzene, vice chancellor for research and innovation and dean of the institutes at CU �鶹ӰԺ. “With added contributions from our renowned research institutes, our College of Engineering and Applied Science and partners beyond our campus, this kind of impact is only possible through the cross-disciplinary approach that makes CU �鶹ӰԺ so unique.”

The center also includes researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) High Altitude Observatory, the University of Alaska, University of Iowa, University of Michigan and the NASA Langley Research Center. The project is a testament to CU �鶹ӰԺ’s decades of research leadership in investigating the deep connections between Earth and the sun.

In emphasizing the need for the SWORD center, Tom Berger, the principal investigator, noted that forecasting weather in space isn’t as easy as forecasting it on the ground in �鶹ӰԺ.

“The space weather system is more complex,” said Berger, executive director of SWx TREC. “You've got magnetic fields. You've got electric currents and plasmas. The solar radiation is changing all the time in ways that really affect the atmosphere.”

Through SWORD, he and his colleagues will conduct research to improve the computer simulations, or models, that scientists use to forecast those shifts. That includes how those models can pull in real-time observations from space. Berger hopes that one day these tools could help operators protect satellites in orbit in the same way that ship captains use weather reports to steer clear of dangers at sea.

Safe harbor

The consequences of fluctuations in space weather can be serious. In February 2022, dozens of satellites in orbit around Earth were lost during what scientists call a “geomagnetic storm.”

A scientist monitors space weather from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in �鶹ӰԺ. (Credit: NOAA)

Berger explained that Earth’s upper atmosphere doesn’t stay still during these storms. Instead, it expands or shrinks by hundreds of miles depending on radiation coming from the sun and electrical currents in the ionosphere—almost as if the planet itself is breathing. Several days before the satellites’ launch, the sun experiencced a particularly large magnetic eruption, ultimately causing Earth’s atmosphere to puff up just as the satellites reached low Earth orbit. They were dragged back into the atmosphere where they burned up on re-entry.

Today, scientists at the Space Weather Prediction Center led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast these kinds of events using a suite of models. The tools seek to replicate the complex physics in space, entirely from a computer screen on Earth. But that isn’t easy.

“One of the challenges in space weather modeling is that you don’t have one model. You have many separate models,” Berger said. “We use one model for the sun and solar wind, one model for Earth's magnetic field and another for the upper atmosphere and ionosphere and so on.”

The team’s work could, ultimately, help the Space Weather Prediction Center build better tools for making up-to-date forecasts of conditions in space. The research may also benefit U.S. Space Force and civilian space traffic managers as they keep track of the ever-growing number of satellites and debris objects in orbit.

As a start, SWORD researchers will lay the groundwork to help these models work better together. Berger added that weather forecasts are so accurate on Earth, in part, because scientists are constantly feeding them with real-world data—such as readings of barometric pressures, wind speeds and more. He and his colleagues hope to do the same with space weather forecasts, incorporating data from satellites already in orbit. Berger sees a day when satellites can use their GPS navigation data to provide space weather forecasters with up-to-the-minute reports about what’s happening in space.

“Then satellite operators can assess collision risks and plan avoidance maneuvers more reliably, particularly during space weather storms,” he said.

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CU �鶹ӰԺ scientist advancing space weather research with major NASA grant

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 15:54:38 +0000

CU �鶹ӰԺ scientist advancing space weather research with major NASA grant Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 07/19/2023 - 09:54

Jeff Zehnder

Above: Luis Navarro
Header Photo: Rendering of NASA's ICON Satellite, a source of data for Navarro's research.

Luis Navarro is pushing the forefront of research in Earth’s extreme upper atmosphere to answer important and complex scientific questions.

Navarro, a research scientist in the Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center (SWx TREC) at the �鶹ӰԺ, has earned a four-year, $700,000 NASA Heliophysics grant to investigate how space weather – coronal mass ejections and other activity from the sun – changes the ionosphere and thermosphere at low latitudes near the equator.

“It’s important to understand how these solar disturbances happen,” Navarro said. “It affects satellites and can change how long they stay in orbit.”

Navarro aims to address unanswered questions about plasma coupling with neutral winds in the ionosphere, which stretches from 48-965 km (30-600 mi) above Earth’s surface. Thousands of satellites and the International Space Station orbit within this area.

“We want to help this community of science,” he said.

Navarro will be developing empirical models of zonal plasma drifts combining data from different radars and satellite missions. The work requires analysis using supercomputers to review conditions during both geomagnetic storms and calm baseline periods over long durations of time.

“Observations are always a mix of different things happening at the same time, and we need to isolate out what’s going on. It changes based on time of day, day of the year, solar flux levels, and then some storm effects are very short, maybe 15-mins to an hour. Others can last for hours up to a couple of days. The physics are different for both,” he said.

For Navarro, the grant represents an endorsement of his interest and pursuit of a career in research.

“It’s amazing to get this, to be honest. Coming from Peru, I never imagined it would happen to me,” he said.

Growing up, Navarro was interested in science and math, but Peru offered limited opportunities in those fields. His parents were an inspiration and helped Navarro to attend the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, one of the best universities in Peru, where he majored in electronic engineering.

He wanted to pursue a career in research, but it seemed unlikely, until an unexpected job opportunity at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory in Lima changed the direction of his life.

“I thought they were a telecommunications company, but actually they’re an observatory doing space weather research. After applying, I didn’t hear from them for four months. They brought me in and offered me a job and even though it wasn’t what I thought, it was an opportunity, and I had to take it,” he said.

Navarro spent five years there, working on signal processing of remote sensing data from the thermosphere. It furthered his interest in research, and in 2015 he came to the United States to earn a PhD in physics at Utah State University.

He joined CU �鶹ӰԺ in 2022.

“I’m very lucky,” Navarro said. “I really enjoy doing this empirical work over theoretical work. It’s much harder and much more rewarding. I’m very fortunate and very blessed.”

In addition to Navarro, the research will also include CU �鶹ӰԺ research professor and SWx TREC Director Jeff Thayer as well as Bela Fejer, a professor at Utah State University. The full title of the NASA grant is Storm-Time Coupling of Low-Latitude F-Region Ionospheric Plasma Drifts and Thermospheric Neutral Winds and Their Impact on Plasma Density Distribution.

Luis Navarro is pushing the forefront of research in Earth’s extreme upper atmosphere to answer important and complex scientific questions. Navarro, a research scientist in the Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center (SWx TREC) at the �鶹ӰԺ, has earned a four-year, $700,000 NASA Heliophysics grant to...

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CU �鶹ӰԺ researcher earns NASA grant to study how space weather affects Earth

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 20:48:20 +0000

CU �鶹ӰԺ researcher earns NASA grant to study how space weather affects Earth Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/19/2023 - 14:48

Jeff Zehnder

A polar tongue of ionization during a geomagnetic storm stretching from lower latitudes up over Canada, Greenland, and northern Europe and Asia.*

Yang Wang is leading a unique study harnessing satellite data to study how solar activity affects a poorly understood region of Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Wang, a visiting faculty member in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and a 2021 graduate of CU �鶹ӰԺ’s aerospace PhD program, has earned a $699,018, four-year Early Career Investigator award from NASA.

“I’m going to be studying the responses of the Earth’s ionosphere to solar activities, particularly in the polar regions,” Wang said. “They are very complicated, coupled processes and are not very well modeled or understood.”

The ionosphere stretches from 48-965 km (30-600 mi) above Earth’s surface. Conditions in it are influenced by space weather, including solar flares and other activity from the sun.

Wang is focused specifically on phenomena called “polar patches and tongues of ionization,” where plasma in the ionosphere stretches out thousands of miles beyond its normal locations. When this occurs, steep electron density gradients can cause disruptions in satellite navigation and communications systems.

A major obstacle in improving our understanding is the difficulty in collecting data. Many studies of space weather analyze how radio signals from global navigation satellite system (GNSS) satellites pass through the ionosphere before reaching ground-receiving stations. At Earth’s poles, however, it is very difficult to deploy and maintain GNSS receivers.

Wang has discovered a new way to collect the data. GNSS signals beamed to Earth’s surface also bounce back up after hitting the ground and reflect into space, where they can be received by other satellites.

A constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbits are already collecting this reflected signal information as part of unrelated research, and NASA makes data available to researchers.

“It’s really exciting to observe the ionosphere in this way,” Wang said. “The hardware systems aren’t designed to do this, so there are some limitations, but this could help us understand what’s going on at high latitudes.”

Wang is developing algorithms to conduct processing and analysis of that data to ferret out new useful information from noise.

“We want to better understand the physical processes in the space environment from the sun to the Earth and advance our understanding of how these polar patches form, evolve, and propagate,” he said.

The grant represents a special validation for Wang; it is the first proposal he submitted as a PhD graduate and will enable his research for the next four years.

“To have my proposal be reviewed by NASA and be recognized, I’m very happy,” Wang said.

*Polar Tongue of Ionization rendering by Dimitry Pokhotelov, Isabel Fernandez-Gomez, and Claudia Borries under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Yang Wang is leading a unique study harnessing satellite data to study how solar activity affects a poorly understood region of Earth’s upper atmosphere. Wang, a visiting faculty member in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and a 2021 graduate of CU �鶹ӰԺ’s aerospace PhD program, has earned a...

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