The National Space Weather Program (NSWP) began in 1994 in response to: 1) community enthusiasm about our nation being poised to achieve major leaps in understanding and predicting the space environment due to pending deployment of new ground-based and space-based instruments coupled with the development of powerful new models; 2) a realization that the space environment is one integrated system encompassing the Sun, solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere; and 3) the recognition by many different agencies of the tremendous societal relevance of “space weather.” The Program elements of the NSWP include basic research, modeling, observations, technology transition, operational forecasting and education. All these elements are vital and the program cannot succeed unless all the separate elements flourish and work together. The focus, however, of this talk will be the recent advances in research, modeling and observations of the space environment.