Expanded Perspectives Provide Better Space Weather Predictions

Spaceweather includes sunspots, solar flares, the solar flux, coronal holes, and the entire range of conditions hams use to predict and mis-predict future band conditions. These scientific measures are also vital to the health of astronauts, our electric power grid, satellites of all kinds, including GPS and defense strategy platforms, and other civilian, academic, and governmental projects. Public Law 116-181, the PROSWIFT Act, seeks to improve forecasting of all of these spaceweather forecast products.

MEET THE NEW SPACE WEATHER ADVISORY GROUP (SWAG)


NOAA is pleased to announce the appointment of 15 non-government members to the new Space Weather Advisory Group (SWAG).

The SWAG was established by Public Law 116-181, the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow Act of 2020, also known as the PROSWIFT Act.

The members were chosen to provide a range of views that represent the span of the space weather community and end-user sectors. The SWAG will receive advice from the academic community, the commercial space weather sector, and nongovernmental space weather end-users to inform the National Science and Technology Council’s Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) Interagency Working Group (IWG).

The Chair of the SWAG, selected by the NOAA Administrator from one of the 15 members, will be announced by October 15.

“The government alone cannot manage all risks associated with space weather; we need a whole-of-community approach to effectively build a space-weather-resilient Nation,” said Ezinne Uzo-Okoro, Assistant Director of Space Policy, Office of Science Technology Policy at the White House and Co-Chair of the SWORM IWG. “The Space Weather Advisory Group represents an excellent cross-section of the space weather enterprise in this Nation. Leveraging their industry perspective will inevitably lead to more informed space weather policy.”

By statute, the SWAG will advise the SWORM IWG on improving the ability of the United States to prepare for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from space weather storms. The SWAG will also advise on enhancing the transition of research to operations and operations to research; and developing and implementing an integrated space weather observation strategy.

“Strong public-private collaborations must be established among the three components of the weather enterprise: Federal Government, industry, and academia in order to build the Nation’s resilience against severe space-weather events,” said Louis W. Uccellini, Ph.D., Director, National Weather Service and Co-Chair of the SWORM IWG.

“These 15 individuals bring a wealth of industry, academic, and user perspectives and experience to the table that will help accomplish the goal of building a Space-Weather Ready Nation that we all are striving to achieve.”

An initial action of the advisory group will be to conduct a comprehensive survey of the needs of users of space weather products to identify the space weather research, observations, forecasting, and modeling advances required to improve space weather products. SWAG members will each serve a three year term.

2021 Space Weather Advisory Group


Commercial Providers:

Jennifer Gannon, VP of Research and Development, Computational Physics, Inc. Lafayette, CO

Conrad Lautenbacher, Executive Chairman, GeoOptics, Inc., Dunwoody, GA

Seth Jonas, Principal, Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, MD

Kent Tobiska, President, Space Environment Technologies, Pacific Palisades, CA

Nicole Duncan, Heliophysics Mission Area Lead, Ball Aerospace, Boulder, CO


Academia:

Tamas Gombosi, Distinguished Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Delores Knipp, Research Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

Scott McIntosh, Deputy Director, National Centers for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO

Heather Elliott, Staff Scientist, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX

George Ho, Chief Scientist (Instrumentation), Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD


End-Users:

Mark Olson, Senior Engineer and Manager, Reliability Assessments, North American Electric Reliability Corporation, Atlanta, GA

Michael Stills, Retired, (former) Director, Flight Dispatch, Network Operation Control Center, United Airlines, Ashburn, VA

Craig Fugate, Chief Emergency Management Officer, One Concern, Gainesville, FL

Tamara Dickinson, President, Science Matters Consulting, Washington, DC

Rebecca Bishop, Principal Scientist, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA

Acronym Key

SWAG: Spaceweather Advisory Group
PROSWIFT ACT: Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow Act of 2020 (PUBLIC LAW 116–181—OCT. 21, 2020)
SWORM IWG: Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation Interagency Working Group
TMCA: Too Many Corny Acronyms


More Info? Contact: Jennifer Meehan, jennifer.meehan@noaa.gov.

 

TMCA, ha ha!

 

A Cool and Worthy Endeavour
G3SEA/KH6

 

A committee made up of end users, academia, and commercial providers should provide a wealth of different opinions, vs. the usual career bureaucrats who studied the science 30 years ago. However, Sol is the ultimate ruler, and she maintains her secrets.

https://norse-mythology.org/sol-mani/

 

While the SWAG list seems a bit stuffy touting professional credentials at least one is also a licensed radio amateur ie "Craig" aka @KK4INZ.

 

They can't even accurately predict Earth's weather. Now taxpayers will have to fund Billions to a new group that won't be able to predict weather in space.

Comical how they come up with an organization name and associated acronym.
One definition of SWAG is, " goods acquired by unlawful means". Sounds fitting for a government agency.

 

Good questions - why was it formed, how much will it cost, how long will it last, and will it improve predictions?

"Establishment of the SWAG implements a statutory requirement of the PROSWIFT Act of 2020 (Pub. L. 116-181), 51 U.S.C. 60601 et seq. The SWAG is governed by the FACA, as amended, 5 U.S.C. App., which sets forth standards for the formation and use of advisory committees."

"Members are reimbursed for actual and reasonable travel and other per diem expenses incurred in performing such duties but will not be reimbursed for their time."

"The SWAG charter shall terminate 4 years from the date of its filing with the appropriate U.S. Senate and House of Representatives Committees unless earlier terminated or renewed by proper authority."

"The mission of the SWAG is to receive advice from the academic community, the commercial space weather sector, and nongovernmental space weather end users to advise the Space Weather Interagency Working Group (interagency working group) established by the National Science and Technology Council pursuant to 51 U.S.C. 60601(c). Duties include advising the interagency working group on the following:

Facilitating advances in the space weather enterprise of the United States; improving the ability of the United States to prepare for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from space weather phenomena; enabling the coordination and facilitation of research to operations and operations to research, as described in section 60604(d) of title 51, United States Code; and developing and implementing the integrated strategy under 51 U.S.C. 60601(c), including subsequent updates and reevaluations.

The SWAG shall also conduct a comprehensive survey of the needs of space weather products users to identify the space weather research, observations, forecasting, prediction, and modeling advances required to improve space weather products, as required by 51 U.S.C. 60601(d)(3)."

Link to Federal Register Announcement


People I know always referred to a SWAG as a "Silly Wild A** Guess" -- apparently the working group hopes it will amount to more than that.

 

For a bit more background, note that in addition to the information posted here (SWAG created as a statutory response to Congress' PROSWIFT act), there is a multi-administration White House directive identifying space weather understanding and prediction as a critical national strategic priority - reports here:

National Space Weather Action Plan (2015):
https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=789864
https://www.sworm.gov/publications/2015/swap_final__20151028.pdf

2019 hearings
https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110122/documents/HHRG-116-SY18-20191023-SD001.pdf

which led to the
National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan (2019)
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.go...ace-Weather-Strategy-and-Action-Plan-2019.pdf

FYI, I have many colleagues on this list in the Academia and End-Users and they are all dedicated, thoughtful investigators and users of systems affected by space weather. I can predict they will take this charge very seriously indeed. It's a extremely tough problem, because natural variability is a tough problem.

 

I seem missed uplink and downlink frequencies.

 

Luckily, you've reached a full service provider with access to the Internetz.



Try these

A few designed for use by hams

Amateur Sat passes next 6 hours

W6AER Guides and Tips on Working Sats

 

That image is the GOES-R geosynchronous satellite series:

https://www.goes-r.gov/spacesegment/spacecraft.html

Uplink and downlink frequencies are at L band:
https://noaasis.noaa.gov/pdf/Wallops_CDAS_Updates.pdf

So not an amateur satellite by any means. See N1FM's links instead.

 

My attempt to be sarcastic failed. Again.

 

It's hard to convey sarcasm online. On the Internet, we don't have those important visual and auditory cues from a person, like tone of voice or facial expressions, but I was 90% sure it was sarcasm. Some people use /sarcasm or /sarc or /s or </sarcasm> .

Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, every parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied. At first is was applied to any extremist viewpoint, but as you can imagine, with the current state of social discourse, Poe's law is becoming ubiquitous.

Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and other forums have even elected to extinguish potential ambiguities by removing many posts altogether. The deliberate and systematic extinction of opposing viewpoints is the only way in which we can all truly agree.

 

But look at all the good information it produced! Grateful for the ask.

Actually, you could of course build your own GOES-R ground station with 23cm equipment and receive the downlink. It's probably a huge project to decode the telemetry, but it's a hobby. I should work out the link budget though (Wallops seems to use a 9 meter parabolic antenna and an unknown peak TX power) - probably beyond your typical SatNOGS project

PS: SatNOGS = https://satnogs.org