REACH Data Used as a Tool for Determining Impacts at Aviation Altitudes

The USSF Responsive Environmental Assessment Commercial Hosting (REACH) dosimeters are deployed on 32 polar orbiting LEO satellites. The constellation almost always has at least one sensor in the polar regions, providing nearly constant observations of space radiation impacts in the near-Earth environment from transient Solar Particle Events (SPE). The data are streamed to the ground continuously with a latency of about one-minute and fully processed data have a latency of less than ten minutes. Therefore, this dataset provides a near-real-time view of the rigidity cutoff at several energy channels, the most numerous being 14 sensors providing an integral-in-energy proton measurements of greater than ~12 MeV.

We will attempt to use the REACH data to show how the rigidity cutoff moves in magnetic latitude and longitude as the space weather impacts the geo-magnetosphere, which can assist in providing a prediction for impacts to the aviation industry. Currently, when there are space weather disturbances the aviation industry relies on pre-calculated models, and large conservative geographic based latitude regions to avoid. We report on progress providing a data driven tool that will provide more precise definitions of the regions that should be avoided to minimize operational impacts while ensuring that doses to crew and passengers do not exceed the recommended limits.