Space Academy · Contents · Chapter 3 · §3.8 · Nederlandse versie

§3.8 Weather, space weather and space surveillance

Knowing what the weather does on Earth, what the Sun does in space, and what happens in orbit around you.

Open §3.8 in the academy

Weather satellites (in GEO and polar orbits) provide the cloud and wind data that every air operation plans on. Space weather — solar flares and geomagnetic storms — disrupts HF radio, makes GNSS less accurate and makes the upper atmosphere expand, so that satellites in LEO descend faster. In February 2022, 38 recently launched Starlink satellites were lost this way.

Space surveillance (space domain awareness) tracks every object in orbit: satellites, rocket bodies and debris. Most of this is done from the ground (radars such as the American Space Fence, telescopes such as the Russian Okno complex), but also from space: the American GSSAP satellites patrol the GEO belt and look at other satellites from close by.

The current space weather forecast is available on the Orbital Radar space weather page, among others; the official source is the Space Weather Prediction Center of the US NOAA.