NOAA Operational Space Environmental Monitoring—Current Capabilities amd Future Directions

During the next few years the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service will field new operational capabilities for monitoring the near-earth space environment in addition to maintaining continued measurements in geostationary orbit. The most exciting new capability will be transitioning routine solar wind and magnetic field measurements at L1 (240 Re) from the NASA Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite to the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) which will be launched in the late 2014 with a projected on-orbit readiness in mid-2015. Co-manifested on the DSCOVR launch vehicle will be a solar-sail demonstration mission, called SUNJAMMER, which will be obtaining plasma and field measurements at twice the L1 location. Both DSCOVR and SUNJAMMER provide a near-term advanced warning of impending space weather events that can adversely affect communications, satellite operations, GPS positioning and commercial air transportation. NESDIS has also supported the development of a Compact Coronagraph (CCOR) which could provide a several day warning of space weather when coupled with an interplanetary disturbance propagation model like ENLIL. Routine monitoring of the ionosphere will be provided by the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) II as a system which is a partnership among the Taiwan's National Space Organization, the U.S. Air Force and NOAA. The new operational capabilities provided by DSCOVR, SUNJAMMER, CCOR and COSMIC II are set against the backdrop of continued space environmental measurements from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) which, in the near future, will transition to the GOES-R series of advanced space weather sensors. Continued space environmental measurements in polar low earth orbit (LEO) will continue to be provided by the remaining Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and the European MetOp satellites.