NASA's Contributions to Space Weather

The past four years have seen a series of new spacecraft launched toward the goal of investigating the properties and mechanisms of the space environment. The missions – Hinode, STEREO, AIM, THEMIS, TWINS, IBEX, and the contributed instrument on the USAF C/NOFS mission – have yielded insights and information that are not only of research value, but provide a solid basis for the improvement of space situational awareness. The next five years should see the launch of three major strategic missions –SDO, RBSP and MMS – along with the small explorer, IRIS. These missions, and the distributed observatory they create in combination, are significant assets allowing our scientific community to achieve major leaps in understanding and predicting the space environment. Looking to the future, a community-based roadmap for the Heliophysics Division has recently been completed. This strategic planning document identified many successes as well as the potential for many new opportunities. Vital and urgent science topics remain to be explored. This plan, involving new technologies and new missions timed to understand the unexplored connections between elements in the heliophysics system, will help direct future NASA investments. This presentation will cover the advances made by recently launched missions, the opportunities afforded by the missions being readied for launch, and NASA's heliophysics roadmap for the future.