2013 Radiation Belts Workshop: Comprehending, Specifying and Forecasting their Dynamics

New data and forecasting products in the framework of the EU FP7 Project SPACECAST

1 Jul 2013, 17:00

30m

Island of Santorini, Greece (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini)

Oral Specification Models of the Radiation Belts: Radiation Environment Data Analyses/Validation Specification Models of the Radiation Belts

Speaker

Dr Daniel Heynderickx (DH Consultancy BVBA)

Description

Solar activity can trigger sporadic bursts of energetic particles in the solar wind and increase the number of high and low energy particles trapped inside the Earth's radiation belts. These cause damage to satellites and are a hazard for manned spaceflight and aviation. They are difficult to predict due to uncertainties over the basic physical processes, and the need to access reliable data in real time. The SPACECAST project (European Union Framework Programme 7 Project 262468) aims to protect space assets from high and low energy particles in the electron radiation belts and during solar energetic particle events by developing European dynamic modelling and forecasting capabilities. SPACECAST uses a MySQL database server (using the ESA Open Data Interface under licence) operated by DH Consultancy to collect magnetic indices, solar wind parameters and GOES particle fluxes in near real time, and combines this with web services to distribute the data to model servers at NERC/BAS, ONERA and FMI, where model runs are executed to obtain forecasts of high and low energy electron fluxes in the radiation belts. The model results are collected by the DH Consultancy server, post-processed and displayed on the SPACECAST web site (http://fp7-spacecast.eu/) in the form of panel plots, movies and alerts (including a satellite risk index for GEO deep dielectric charging). All processes are fully automated and run at hourly intervals. Most recently, modelling of solar energetic protons and a service to calculate radiation doses have been added. In addition, alert services are being defined which can be tailored by registered users.