Delores Knipp will give the AFRL/AFOSR Chief Scientist Distinguished Lecture on Space Weather at 13 EDT / 11 MDT on 11 September.
Registration is required: https://www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_UrSzsoCQQricAm_OB7Vj5g
Talk Titled: Space Weather: Balancing an Unbalanced Threat
Description: Space weather, like terrestrial weather, poses a multi-faceted challenge to DoD operations. However, space weather, driven primarily by actions of the Sun, is subject to more extreme behavior sometimes on very short time scales. The rapid onset and severity of extreme space weather events has produced spectacular effects on DoD, some of which have been revealed in the open literature. I will discuss of few of these events, notably May 1967 and August 1972, as examples of space weather with world-wide ramifications. In addition to extraordinary technology impacts at the ground, these events caused significant challenges with spacecraft tracking in low Earth environment (LEO). Recovery of the ‘space catalogue’ during these and more recent events took days to weeks. A recent machine-learning effort has shown about three percent of days in a decade are likely subject to severe conditions in LEO with about half percent corresponding to extreme conditions. In the latter part of my presentation, I will focus on the LEO space environment, which currently hosts thousands of LEO spacecraft and tens-ofthousands of pieces of space debris. Prior to the development of mega-constellations, the space catalogue was subject to major disruptions (e.g., October 2003) on at least a decadal cadence. To balance what the Sun blasts our way as solar cycle 25 ramps up , even ‘moderate’ space weather events in congested space will require rapid assessment capability and an agile coordinated response (that is nascent) in civilian, commercial and DoD sectors.