A new partnership between the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Air Force Weather Agency seeks to reduce the impact of space environmental effects on Department of Defense assets through better forecasting of violent solar storms.

Space-based communications, navigation and surveillance systems can all be adversely affected by the environment in which they operate. These impacts range from energetic particles in the Van Allen radiation belts disrupting satellite micro-electronics to turbulence in the ionosphere degrading ground-to-space communication links.

The space environment is not a static system to be measured once, corrected and forgotten. Rather, it is a dynamic "space weather" system driven by unruly radiation and plasma from the solar surface.

Predicting destructive flares is unreliable at best. To improve the space weather forecast value to operational end-users, scientists with AFRL's Solar Disturbance Prediction Program at the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak, N.M., initiated a project called Solar Fusion.

This "data fusion" effort aims to bundle state-of-the-art, research-grade solar and space environment data from a large variety of telescopes, satellites and computer-based models, and make it available to AFWA's Space Weather Operations Center.

"AFWA relies on real-time solar measurements to allow accurate forecasting of hazardous space weather conditions," said Lt. Col. William Cade, AFWA's applied technology division chief. "AFRL is a perfect partner to support our space weather forecast mission."

"We need to improve the value of space weather forecasting because things like satellite operations and warfighter communication, as well as navigation on the ground are drastically affected by what the sun is doing," said Nathan Dalrymple, solar disturbance prediction program manager, AFRL's Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirtland AFB, N.M.

"By enabling more accurate forecasts, Solar Fusion allows the Air Force and the DOD to better manage its communication networks and satellite operations," he said.

The first fruits of Solar Fusion were realized in January when daily solar data began to pass from AFRL to AFWA. The collaboration currently consists of maps of the solar wind speed projected onto the sun and involves a three-step process.

First, ground-based facilities at the Mount Wilson Observatory, near Pasadena, Calif., and the National Solar Observatory at Kitt Peak, Ariz., provide solar magnetic field information to the AFRL facility, 15 miles south of Cloudcroft, N.M.

Then, a source surface map is generated and sent to AFWA. Finally, AFWA uses the source surface map to initialize the new Hakamada-Akasofu-Fry solar wind model, which forecasts when a coronal mass ejection will strike the Earth. Other ventures between the two agencies have also been planned.

Within the next few months, solar imagery taken with the optical solar patrol network will be sent to AFWA. So will solar magnetic field measurements produced by the Synoptic Optical Long-Term Investigations of the Sun facility at Kitt Peak, which is comprised of a suite of three instruments with a data handling system offering full-disk solar observations.

In addition, AFWA will receive long-term studies of the sun including climatological research and enhanced solar flare forecasting techniques using statistical methods.

"We want to be AFWA's research arm and the trusted source of data that they need," said Richard Radick, section chief of the solar disturbance prediction section. "The products of Solar Fusion will allow us to contribute more directly to space weather forecasting and increase our value to the warfighter."

Solar disturbances that hamper military operations include electromagnetic radiation (ultraviolet and visible light and radio frequency emissions), which reaches the Earth within a few minutes; fast particles, traveling at near the speed of light, which impact the globe a few minutes to hours after the flares; and vast clouds of plasma known as CMEs which hit the planet one to three days after erupting from the sun.

To detect these space weather storms, AFWA has relied on solar telescopes, satellite measurements and skilled human forecasters. On the other hand, Solar Fusion has already enhanced the current forecasting process by enabling the operation of a state of the art, computer-based CME forecasting tool -- the HAF model.

When complete, Solar Fusion will provide far-ranging upgrades to our current capabilities, by gathering space environmental data from a variety of sources including ground-based optical, radio, ionospheric and space-based observatories, as well as empirical/numerical models.

"Basic research, by itself, is not worth much, but when it is transitioned through applied research into operational products it becomes indispensable to the warfighter," Dr. Dalrymple said. "Our relationship with AFWA is a two-way street that we are trying to build and foster and Solar Fusion provides a firm foundation."

(Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)