RENO, NEVADA -- Once a spacecraft reaches orbit, it's far from smooth sailing. Nasty run-ins with crippling doses of radiation, getting struck by brutal bursts of energy churned out by the Sun, or being pinged with speedy meteoroids and human-made debris - these and other effects make up the ebb and flow of the space environment that engulfs our planet.
Not only could a satellite's electronic innards succumb to rough and tumble space weather, but life and society here on Earth can also be impacted.
How best to study, cope and counter such menacing threats drew space environment experts to the 40th American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aerospace Sciences meeting, held here January 14-17.
Our Sun - the star
One of NASA's newest efforts is the
within the Sun-Earth system. The Sun pumps out volumes of high-energy particles and radiation, wafting through and affecting the entire "geospace" region. Although the Earth is under a protective shield of a magnetic field and atmosphere, the planet's ionosphere and magnetosphere do react to solar fluctuations. Much of the Sun's outpouring of energy reaches the surface of the Earth."Because of the consequences to the Earth of the Sun's dynamic behavior and the rapidly expanding utilization of the geospace region for human activities, a thorough understanding of the Sun's effects is becoming increasingly essential," notes Janet Barth, a discipline scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
In a paper detailing the LWS program, Barth explains that far-reaching effects of the Sun-Earth interaction include orbiting spacecraft, humans in space, as well as aircraft routes, and terrestrial climate change.
Flood of data
The LWS program is comprised of three program elements: Science Missions; a Theory, Modeling, and Data Analysis program; and a Space Environment Testbeds program, said Donna Hardage, an aerospace engineer in the Space Environments & Effects Program at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Hardage said the Living With a Star program includes putting in place a space weather research network. This distributed network of spacecraft will provide continuous observations of the Sun and near-Earth environment. On tap within this decade are launches of a Solar Polar Orbiter, specially positioned Solar Sentinels, a Solar Dynamics Observatory, a Geostorm warning satellite, geospace monitoring spacecraft that "sit" over Earth's North and South Pole, as well as using a bevy of closer-in satellites and platforms.
Handling the flood of science information expected is going to be a challenge, Hardage said. "That's going to be quite a bit of data. The outcome is to have better predictive capabilities," she said.
Next page: High-altitude havoc
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