by The burgeoning space industry and the Technology Society are increasingly dependent on electrical networks, aviation and telecommunications – all are susceptible to the same threat: space weather.
The space weather includes all variations in the space environment between the sun and earth. A usual type of space weather event is described as an interplanetary coronal mass emissions.
These effects are bundle of magnetic fields and particles that come from the sun. You can drive up to 1,242 miles per second (2,000 kilometers per second) and cause geomagnetic storms.
They create beautiful Aurora displays – like the Northern Lights, which you can sometimes see in heaven – also disturb the satellite operations, complete the electrical network and expose astronauts to the future occupation missions on the moon and Mars in fatal radiation doses.
I am a heliophysicist and space weather expert, and my team leads the development of a next generation satellite constellation called Swift, which has predicted potentially dangerous space weather events in advance. Our goal is to predict extreme space weather more precisely and earlier.
The dangers of space weather
Commercial interests now make up a large part of space research, focus on space tourism, the establishment of satellite networks and the pulling of resources from the moon and near asteroids.
The room is also a critical domain for military operations. Satellites offer essential skills for military communication, monitoring, navigation and intelligence.
Since countries like the United States grow to be dependent on the infrastructure in space, extreme space weather events are a greater threat. Today, space weather threatens up to 2.7 trillion dollars worldwide.
In September 1859, the most well -known room weather event in North America and Europe caused fires by charging telegraph lines. In August 1972, another Carrington-like event almost hit the astronauts who circled the moon. The radiation dose could have been fatal. In recent times, SpaceX lost in February 2022 due to a moderate space weather experience 39 of his 49 newly launched Starlink satellites.
Today’s space weather monitors
The space weather services are strongly based on satellites that monitor the sun wind, which consists of magnetic field lines and particles from the sun, and convey their observations back on earth. Scientists can then compare these observations with historical records in order to predict and examine the space weather how the earth can react to the observed changes in the sun wind.
The magnetic field of the earth naturally protects living beings and erasing satellites from most adverse effects of space weather. However, extreme space weather events can compress the magnetic shield of the earth – or withdraw in some cases.
This process enables solar wind particles to make it into our protected environment – the magnetosphere – that expose satellites and astronauts on board space stations under hard conditions.
Most satellites that continuously monitor the bound space weather or circle relatively close to the planet. Some satellites are located in a low earth orbit, about 161 kilometers above the surface of the earth, while others in the Geosynchronian orbit, about 40,000 km away.
At these distances, the satellites remain in the protective magnetic sign of the earth and can reliably measure the planet’s reaction to space weather conditions. However, in order to examine a direct study of incoming sun wind, researchers use additional satellites that are further upstream – hundreds of thousands from miles from the earth.
The United States, the European Space Agency and India, operate all satellites of space weather surveillance that are located around the L1 Lagrange Point – almost 900,000 miles (1,450,000 km from earth – where the gravitational forces of the sun and earth balance can be delivered.
Preliminary warning for space weather progresses
The warning time over 40 minutes – the current warning time – would better prepare satellite operators, electrical network planners, flight directors, astronauts and Space Force officers for extreme space weather events.
For example, the atmosphere in geomagnetic storms heats up and expands and increases, which increases the air resistance to satellites in a low orbit. With sufficient preliminary warning, the operators can update their drag calculations to prevent satellites from descending and burning during these events. With the updated resistance calculations, satellite operators could use the drive systems of the satellites to maneuver them higher in orbit.
The airlines could change their routes to suspend passengers and employees in geomagnetic storms not to expose high radiation doses. And future astronauts on the way to the moon or on Mars, who has no protection against these particles, could be drawn in advance to get cover.
Aurora lovers would also appreciate more time to achieve their preferred consideration goals.
The space weather examination border
My team and I have developed a new space weather satellite constellation, which the Space Weather Investigation has called Frontier. For the first time, Swift will place a space weather monitor beyond the L1 point to 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers). This distance would enable scientists to inform decision -makers about all earth -bound space weather events up to almost 60 minutes before arrival.
Satellites with traditional chemical and electrical drive systems can maintain an orbit in this place – further from the earth and closer to the sun. This is because you have to continuously burn the fuel in order to counteract the gravitational suit of the sun.
To tackle this problem, our team has spent decades to develop and develop a new drive system. Our solution is designed in such a way that it is reliably used a distance that is closer to the sun than the traditional L1 point and there for more than a decade by a rich and reliable resource -sunlight.
Swift would use a fueless drive system called a solar sail to reach its orbit. A solar sail is a Haardunic, reflective surface-simulated a very thin mirror that extends over a third of a soccer field. It balances the power of light particles from the sun, which she writes away with the gravity of the sun that pulls it inwards.
While a sailboat creates the wind flowing on the curved sailing to move over the water, a solar sail uses the dynamics of photons from sunlight, which reflects its large, shiny sail to drive a spaceship through space. Both the sailboat and the solar sail use the energy transmission from their respective environments to control the movement without relying on traditional lifting agents.
A solar sail could enable Swift to enter an otherwise unstable sub-L1 orbit without the risk of fuel.
NASA successfully launched its first solar sails in 2010. This in-room demonstration called Nanosail-D2 contained a 107 square meter (10 m)2 ) Sail and was placed in a low earth orbit. In the same year, the Japanese space agency started a larger solar sail of Ikaros, which used a 2,110 ft2 (196 m2 ) Sailing in the sun wind and successfully circles Venus.
The Planetary Society and the NASA, followed by two sails in Low Earth Orbit: Lightsail with an area of 344 feet2 (32 m2 ) and the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System with an area of 860 feet2 (80 m2 ).
The Solar Sail Demonstration Mission of the Swift team, Solar Cruiser, will be equipped with a much larger sail – it will have an area of 17,793 feet2 (1,653 m2 ) and start as early as 2029. We successfully used a quadrant of the sail on earth at the beginning of last year.
In order to transport it into space, the team will fold the sail in a small canister fold and firmly pack. The biggest challenge to overcome is to use the sail once in space and to guide the satellite on its orbital path.
If successful, Solar Cruiser paves the way for Swift’s constellation of four satellites. The constellation would include a satellite that is equipped with a sailing drive and is brought out in an orbit via L1, and three smaller satellites with a chemical drive in the orbit on the L1 Lagrange Point.
The satellites are parked at L1 indefinitely and collect data in the sunwind without interruption. Each of the four satellites can observe the sun wind from different locations and better predict scientists how they can develop before reaching the earth.
Since modern life depends more on space infrastructure, it can protect both spatial and floor-based technologies.
This article will be released from the conversation, a non -profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and trustworthy analyzes to help you understand our complex world. It was written by: Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti, Michigan University
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Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti receives funds from NASA. He is the main researcher of the Frontier space weather examination (Swift).
