Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SafeSpace (Radiation Belt Environmental Indicators for the Safety of Space Assets)
Período documentado: 2021-07-01 hasta 2022-12-31
The main goal of the SafeSpace project has been to design and produce a prototype service dedicated to adverse space weather events impacting near-Earth space and threatening space-borne assets. The Space Safety Service is devoted to the prediction and early warning of solar disturbance effects on Earth-orbiting satellites through the enhancement of energetic electron flux and fluence in the outer Van Allen radiation belt. Effective mitigation of the detrimental effects of such events is possible with reliable warnings and could result in cost avoidance of several billion euros globally per decade.
The ultimate result of the project is a sophisticated model of the electron radiation belt and a space weather prototype service of tailored radiation belt environmental indicators, which provide forecasts with lead times of 2-4 days.
The prototype service is available at: http://www.safespace-service.eu
The overall coupled objectives of the SafeSpace project have been:
- to map solar disturbances at the Sun and propagate them in interplanetary space all the way from the Sun to the Earth;
- to subsequently map the obtained interplanetary space conditions into geospace through the use of a neural network coupling tool, which estimates geomagnetic indices from interplanetary parameters;
- to produce a detailed map of plasma density in the inner magnetosphere parameterized by geomagnetic activity levels;
- to accurately define plasma density and wave diffusion coefficients, including their uncertainties, in order to improve the performance of the Salammbô model of the electron radiation belt;
- to predict a time-dependent state of the energetic electrons trapped in the outer radiation belt giving a metric on the confidence of a prediction;
- to produce information on physical quantities such as radiation belt fluxes and fluences along specific spacecraft orbits;
- to define, in collaboration with space industry, particle radiation activity indices that are useful to spacecraft operations;
- to design and establish a prototype service of such indicators and early warnings and provide them to spacecraft operators and industries for evaluation;
- to use the service evaluation feedback for improvements of its functionality.
The ultimate result of the project is a sophisticated model of the electron radiation belt and a space weather prototype service of tailored radiation belt environmental indicators, which provide forecasts with lead times of 2-4 days.
The prototype service is available at: http://www.safespace-service.eu
The overall coupled objectives of the SafeSpace project have been:
- to map solar disturbances at the Sun and propagate them in interplanetary space all the way from the Sun to the Earth;
- to subsequently map the obtained interplanetary space conditions into geospace through the use of a neural network coupling tool, which estimates geomagnetic indices from interplanetary parameters;
- to produce a detailed map of plasma density in the inner magnetosphere parameterized by geomagnetic activity levels;
- to accurately define plasma density and wave diffusion coefficients, including their uncertainties, in order to improve the performance of the Salammbô model of the electron radiation belt;
- to predict a time-dependent state of the energetic electrons trapped in the outer radiation belt giving a metric on the confidence of a prediction;
- to produce information on physical quantities such as radiation belt fluxes and fluences along specific spacecraft orbits;
- to define, in collaboration with space industry, particle radiation activity indices that are useful to spacecraft operations;
- to design and establish a prototype service of such indicators and early warnings and provide them to spacecraft operators and industries for evaluation;
- to use the service evaluation feedback for improvements of its functionality.
Work Package 2 (Solar and interplanetary drivers of geospace conditions) has conducted extensive modelling of space weather events (CMEs and HSSs) all the way from the Sun's surface to Earth's magnetosphere. It focuses on determining the occurrence and propagation of the solar wind perturbations capable of affecting the terrestrial magnetosphere and on quantifying the predictability of key space weather driving parameters at Earth. Using neural networks, it provides quantification of when and how much energy is fed from the solar wind into the inner magnetosphere via the prediction of the Kp index.
Work package 3 (Inner magnetosphere dynamics) conducted extensive modelling of space weather events in the inner magnetosphere and carried out research to improve existing radiation belt models. It focused on modelling of the inner magnetosphere drivers for a space weather service dedicated to the Earth radiation belts. More specifically, it focused on the parameterization of cold plasma density by solar/IMF parameters from WP2, through the predicted Kp index. Moreover, WP3 focused on a prototype of an operational model of diffusion coefficients. For the purpose of a space weather service that provides forecast capabilities, special care has been devoted to quantify the benefits gained thanks to these improvements.
Work package 4 (Space Safety Service) was devoted to the definition, the design and the setup of the Safe Space services. It focused on energetic electron radiation belts, which potentially lead to internal spacecraft charging events. As a first step, user needs were collected, processed and classified by a major European space industry, Thales Alenia Space. This process led to the design of the radiation belt activity indices, which are now routinely derived and made available to any end-user on a dedicated web site.
These indices are based on daily averaged electron fluxes defined on three standard orbits: LEO, MEO and GEO. They are dedicated to the quantification of the internal charging risk for each of the three orbits. Besides, they serve in a three-color warning system, associated to three levels of risk: “quiet”, “moderate” if the daily averaged flux is among the 20% strongest historical fluxes values and “active” if the daily averaged flux is among the 2% strongest historical fluxes values. The historical flux values are built from long-term measurements over the three studied orbits to be as representative possible of the full range of the electron radiation belt dynamics.
A dedicated server for the retrieving, the processing, and the hosting of near-real time Environmental Monitoring Units (EMU) measurements from the units on-board Galileo satellite 0207 and 0215 was set up. In addition, a dedicated website (https://galileo.safespace.sparc.space/) was created to provide dedicated services related to Galileo navigation satellites.
Work package 5 (Evaluation and verification) was devoted to the evaluation and the verification of the accuracy of the SafeSpace service, to the evaluation of the final products and support services dedicated to Galileo satellites and to the evaluation of the SafeSpace modelling pipeline using virtual L5 mission observations.
The exploitation, dissemination, and communication (WP6) of the project activities and results to the scientific and user community ensured the increased visibility of SafeSpace and the maximum impact of the project activities and products. A range of communication tools, techniques, and activities appropriate for the different identified audiences has been deployed. We have designed and run outreach activities that acted as catalysers, motivating the public at different ages and education levels.
Work package 3 (Inner magnetosphere dynamics) conducted extensive modelling of space weather events in the inner magnetosphere and carried out research to improve existing radiation belt models. It focused on modelling of the inner magnetosphere drivers for a space weather service dedicated to the Earth radiation belts. More specifically, it focused on the parameterization of cold plasma density by solar/IMF parameters from WP2, through the predicted Kp index. Moreover, WP3 focused on a prototype of an operational model of diffusion coefficients. For the purpose of a space weather service that provides forecast capabilities, special care has been devoted to quantify the benefits gained thanks to these improvements.
Work package 4 (Space Safety Service) was devoted to the definition, the design and the setup of the Safe Space services. It focused on energetic electron radiation belts, which potentially lead to internal spacecraft charging events. As a first step, user needs were collected, processed and classified by a major European space industry, Thales Alenia Space. This process led to the design of the radiation belt activity indices, which are now routinely derived and made available to any end-user on a dedicated web site.
These indices are based on daily averaged electron fluxes defined on three standard orbits: LEO, MEO and GEO. They are dedicated to the quantification of the internal charging risk for each of the three orbits. Besides, they serve in a three-color warning system, associated to three levels of risk: “quiet”, “moderate” if the daily averaged flux is among the 20% strongest historical fluxes values and “active” if the daily averaged flux is among the 2% strongest historical fluxes values. The historical flux values are built from long-term measurements over the three studied orbits to be as representative possible of the full range of the electron radiation belt dynamics.
A dedicated server for the retrieving, the processing, and the hosting of near-real time Environmental Monitoring Units (EMU) measurements from the units on-board Galileo satellite 0207 and 0215 was set up. In addition, a dedicated website (https://galileo.safespace.sparc.space/) was created to provide dedicated services related to Galileo navigation satellites.
Work package 5 (Evaluation and verification) was devoted to the evaluation and the verification of the accuracy of the SafeSpace service, to the evaluation of the final products and support services dedicated to Galileo satellites and to the evaluation of the SafeSpace modelling pipeline using virtual L5 mission observations.
The exploitation, dissemination, and communication (WP6) of the project activities and results to the scientific and user community ensured the increased visibility of SafeSpace and the maximum impact of the project activities and products. A range of communication tools, techniques, and activities appropriate for the different identified audiences has been deployed. We have designed and run outreach activities that acted as catalysers, motivating the public at different ages and education levels.
The three major achievements of SafeSpace have been:
- The establishment of a functioning forecast pipeline all the way from the Sun to the radiation belts, built on exclusively European assets.
- The provision of outer belt forecasts with lead times of 2-4 days.
- The provision of confidence levels of the predictions.
The potential impact of a successful forecast service is the cost avoidance of several billion euros globally per decade, thanks to the mitigation of detrimental effects of extreme events of relativistic electron enhancements.
- The establishment of a functioning forecast pipeline all the way from the Sun to the radiation belts, built on exclusively European assets.
- The provision of outer belt forecasts with lead times of 2-4 days.
- The provision of confidence levels of the predictions.
The potential impact of a successful forecast service is the cost avoidance of several billion euros globally per decade, thanks to the mitigation of detrimental effects of extreme events of relativistic electron enhancements.