1. Heliosphere impact on geospace IPY core project (#63) conducted by ICESTAR, IHY (International Heliophysical Year) and 27 other consortia with scientists from 22 countries. Science about coupling phenomena affected by solar activity and cosmic background radiation –Between the different atmospheric layers –Between the magnetosphere and ionosphere –Between the different hemispheres In addition –Development of Virtual Observatories –New instrumentation and technology http://www.space.fmi.fi/ipyid63

2. Networking IHY’s Coordinated Investigation Programmes –Concept for measurement and research campaigns –IHY’s Discipline Planners will help in networking with data providers and other groups sharing similar interests –40 proposals submitted, 8 by consortia of IPY core project #63 Links with geospace oriented programmes –CAWSES (Climate And Weather of the Sun-Earth System): plans for a common data analysis workshop in Internet in fall 2006. –COST296 (Mitigation of Ionospheric effects on Radio Systems): Coordination team for IHY/ICESTAR collaboration has been established recently Collaboration in building VxOs –IHY community is developing several VxOs in the NASA Heliophysics Data Environment –ICESTAR’s VO (GAIA) for auroral precipitation data has been included as an example VO to this Environment

3. Opportunities to assess newsworthy issues: ”Effects of Solar proton events on mid-atmospheric chemistry” –Multinational campaigns with versatile instrumentation (Scandinavia- Alaska-Antarctica) –Continuous systematic radar observations of atmospheric flows and temperatures at different altitudes  homogenenous data sets for modelling work ”Space weather effects on space-born technology” –Distributed GPS-receiver networks  Global picture of the ionospheric electron content and scintillation effects on navigation systems –Meriodional chains of magnetometers  Remote sensing of radiation belt dynamics around the geostationary orbit ”Birth of the Universe” –Cosmic ray measurements in quiet conditions ”New innovations in the measurement technology” –Feasibilty studies for next generation incoherent scatter radars –Network of automatic meteo-magnetic stations: Do strong cyclones affect ionospheric currents?

4. Next stop: Kick-off meeting Feb 5-9 2007, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki Topics –Get together –Management issues: Steering committee etc. –PR- and Outreach programme –Campaign schedule –Cataloging the instrumentation maintained by the Programme –Data sharing issues