Tuesday, 16 January 2007: 5:00 PM
Understanding the Space Environment with GOES-R Solar and Space Environment Data
217D (Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center)
Instrumentation on GOES-R to monitor the highly-variable solar and near-Earth space environment continues a long history of space weather observations from the GOES program. These observations are used to protect life and property of those adversely impacted by space weather conditions. Space weather consists of complex phenomena with significant societal and economic impacts that have been estimated at $100M per year due to interruptions in service of Department of Defense satellites alone. As space weather forecasting becomes more dependent on numerical models in the coming decade, GOES measurements will provide the research community with critical information enabling progress to be made on the underlying physics as well as model validation. The emphasis for GOES-R is to maintain continuity with previous observations, but there are also incidental improvements and changes in the measurements. In this presentation we will describe the status of the space weather instrument suites for GOES-R, the products and services that depend on these instruments, and the preparation for new products and services to better support our users. The GOES R instruments contributing to forecast services and research data include: the Solar Imaging Suite (SIS), that will measure solar x-rays and solar EUV radiation; a solar coronagraph (SCOR) that is part of the SIS suite of instruments, and is currently designated as a pre-planned product improvement instrument; and the energetic particle instruments, called the SEISS (Space Environment In-Situ Suite), that will provide multiple measurements characterizing the charged particle population, including measurements of the electron, proton, and heavy ion fluxes. Finally, Earth's magnetic field will be measured by a magnetometer (MAG) that is part of the spacecraft procurement. The measurements made by these instruments will contribute to the global Earth and Solar observations that are used in NOAA's operations and that strengthen our understanding of space weather and lead to improved models.
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