1. GEOSHAFT Pilot Space Weather Service David Rodgers, Karen Ford and Keith Ryden, QinetiQ, Farnborough, UK SW Week 2005: ESTEC, Noordwijk

2. Internal dielectric charging (IDC) ranks highly among environmental hazards to geostationary satellites. Aim is to provide space radiation threat information for use in real-time planning and post-event anomaly analysis. Intended Products: –Running 24hr averages of >2MeV electron flux –Charging currents through the shielding around sensitive equipment –Maximum electric field in sensitive components Delivery: –Hazard levels on html and alerts by e-mail –User control of alert levels, shielding and material properties GEOSHAFT Objectives 1

3. 3 GEOSHAFT User Needs One external user (New Skies) participated in UR phase Trial version of service was used to generate UR feedback Main requirements: Anomaly diagnostic information Short-term forecasting, up to 24-hours Clear information delivery Easily accessible using common software Robust against data errors and outages Quality flag User customisability 2

4. 4 GEOSHAFT Service evaluation Web ‘hits’ ~ 5/day (excluding search engines) New Skies and Paradigm participated in evaluation Cost of anomalies engineering time dealing with space weather anomalies (of order £20-40k) –New Skies - 1½ months of engineer effort per year for the 5 spacecraft –Paradigm - 3 months of engineer effort per year for fleet disruption to service: –New Skies - 10-15 mins a problem documentation for insurance (typically 2%/year premium) Value of existing GEOSHAFT to users (~ zero) New Skies – no internal charging anomalies Paradigm – mature fleet, no new anomalies, interest in longer-term forecasts for operations No value in having European space weather capability per se Nevertheless an improved service would have value 3

5. 5 GEOSHAFT Business plan Based on an improved service Market ~ 320 geostationary satellites, ~ 60 systems, 6 multiple European systems Costs £ Funding models Subscription £5k/u/yr Public service £77k over 3 years Comparisons NOAA SEC, NASA’s ‘SpaceWeather.com’, IPS in Australia, BAS SatRisk and IRF Lund are non-subscription, also SPENVIS currently. Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group ~ $15k/u/yr Set-upRecur.DataBusinessMarket.Total In-house35k16k0.5k /u/yr12k99.5k Hosted31k16k0.5k /u/yr6k101.5k Joint33k10k0.25k/u/yr6k80.25k 4

6. 6 GEOSHAFT Prospective improvements Without changes the existing service is too limited New requirements –Local time mapping –Multiple satellites visible at once –Easier customisation of shielding, no fields –Automated anomaly comparisons Being part of global service makes sense financially and practically for users New Data sources –Higher spectral resolution for better internal charging calculations feasible –More GEO monitors would improve predictions and local time mapping –Extension to MEO New, sophisticated detectors on GSTB/Galileo Galileo creates a major new user Europe could become the principal provider of MEO spacecraft hazard information. 5