Space Weather Advisory Group (SWAG) User Needs Survey: Overview

The Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act, Public Law 116-181, directed the Administrator of NOAA and the National Science and Technology Council’s Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) Subcommittee to establish the Space Weather Advisory Group (SWAG). The SWAG was appointed by the SWORM in September, 2021. It consists of 15 members with 5 members each representing non-government end users, the commercial sector, and the academic community.

The SWAG is to receive advice from the academic community, the commercial space weather sector, and nongovernmental space weather end users to carry out the responsibilities of the SWAG set forth in the PROSWIFT Act.

The PROSWIFT Act outlined a variety of duties for the SWAG including conducting a comprehensive survey of the needs of users of space weather products to identify the space weather research, observations, forecasting, prediction, and modeling advances required to improve space weather products. This survey will: (1) assess the adequacy of current Federal Government goals for lead time, accuracy, coverage, timeliness, data rate. and data quality for space weather observations and forecasting; (2) identify options and methods to, in consultation with the academic community and the commercial space weather sector, improve upon the advancement of the goals described in clause; (3) identify opportunities for collection of new data to address the needs of the space weather user community; (4) identify methods to increase coordination of space weather research to operations and operations to research; (5) identify opportunities for new technologies, research, and instrumentation to aid in research, understanding, monitoring, modeling, prediction, forecasting, and warning of space weather; and (6) identify methods and technologies to improve preparedness for potential space weather phenomena. The SWAG surveyed the following sectors: electric power grid, global navigation satellite systems, aviation, emergency management, space traffic management and coordination, human spaceflight, and research.

This talk provides an overview of SWAG, the user needs survey, and follow on activities. This will be followed by sector specific talks on the preliminary results of the survey.