Fusion of Multiple Space Weather Data for Situational Assessment

ABSTRACT: As satellite technology has become increasingly pervasive in both our military warfighting capability and civilian society, the ability to determine and forecast space environmental impacts on these satellites is critical. AFRL, NOAA and NASA have been nowcasting and forecasting space weather events such as Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), Solar Flares, and Geomagnetic Storms. These space weather events can cause serious operational problems with satellites. Atmospheric drag effects on low flying satellites, ionosphere scintillation, communications upsets, and spacecraft surface charging are a just a few documented interferences due to solar storm disruptions. MTSI will select a representative satellite system, such as GPS, and characterize different satellite anomalies due to space weather impacts. Multiple space weather data sources will be fused with satellite orbital state data and satellite subsystem performance to highlight weather impacts on satellite mission performance. This multi-sensor fusion approach will incorporate a fusion technique to correlate satellite anomalies with the space environment. Scalability will be demonstrated by incorporating a Solar Prediction Model as a new data stream. Finally, MTSI will provide an initial concept demonstration and show the potential interoperability with JMS infrastructure, including alerting and visualization services. BENEFIT: With over 950 active satellites in orbit around the earth, satellite operators are very interested in the effects that space weather has on their spacecraft. Almost half of that number belong to the United States; with close to a 50/50 mix between civil/commercial and government/military satellites. The techniques developed under this proposal will show the linkage between space environment effects and impacts to subsystems on the spacecraft.