April 1, 2010 Space Weather Center Tobiska & Carlson 1 USU Innovation and Invention Awards Reception Thursday, 01 April 2010

April 1, 2010 Space Weather Center http://spaceweather.usu.edu/ Tobiska & Carlson 1

USU Innovation and Invention Awards Reception

Thursday, 01 April 2010

W. Kent Tobiska, Director

Herbert C. Carlson, Director Strategic Development

USU USTAR Space Weather Center


USU Space Weather Center6 Faculty Members • PI — Robert W. Schunk

• Jan J. Sojka• Ludger Scherliess• Donald C. Thompson• Lie Zhu• Larry Gardner

3 Senior Level Scientists • Director — W. Kent Tobiska• Director Strat. Develop. — Herbert C. Carlson • Solar Wind Expert — TBD

1 Executive Admin. Asst. • Shawna Johnson

1 Senior Software Engineer • Eric Hunsaker

1 Website Designer • Krista Park

2 Postdocs • TBD

6 Students • David Hansen, Landry Heaton, TBD

Total • 13 of 20 positions filled


What is the USU Space Weather Center’s role ?

Vision: Provide operational SpWx for 21st Century challenges

Mission: Provide global real-time data to reduce SpWx risks

First 9 months product, system, and project milestones:• Product releases:

• Space WX iPhone public education app (v1.2) released at Apple

• v1.3 released 12 Nov 2009; v1.4.0 release 01 May 2010

• Product demo: Global HF radio 15 MHz ray-trace propagation

• System start-ups:

• GAIM Global uses 400 GPS stations & 10,000 measurements every 15 minutes to create accurate real-time ionosphere

• GAIM Continental U.S. (CONUS) has high spatial resolution

• Facility completion: Space Weather Center facility in USU SER building


What is Space Weather?

The Sun’s photons, particles and fields that dynamically

affect near Earth space and our technology




space weather

terrestrial weather

The space station and space shuttle fly through the upper atmosphere & ionosphere


50 miles

240 miles

GPS Satellites at 15,000 Miles

Human Activities Affected by Space Weather


Logan HF signal

TEC

GPS

USU SWC products

TEC

GAIM


The ionosphere at low and high latitudes can be disrupted by large scale variations

which interfere with communications


NOAA space weather warning on September 7 2005:o A powerful solar flare eruptso KATRINA communications affectedo U.S. disaster relief workers lost reliability of their backup communication system

Hurricane KatrinaAug 29, 2005

HF commfor first responders


Commercial Aviation Routing Incident September 7, 2005 1931 UT:

• A major solar flare occurs

• The event creates a complete radio blackout on the sunlit hemisphere

• A Chicago to Hong Kong flight on a polar route forced to divert to Anchorage at a schedule penalty of 180 minutes and additional fuel

• Per incident-plane costs for route diversions start at $250,000


6000 planes fly over the U.S. every morning – better geolocation allows them to fly closer together


Where is my iPhone?Severe disruption of GPS can occur from solar flares and

geomagnetic storms and the uncertainty grows significantly


Magnetic Storm Over LoganOct. 22, 1999, at 2:40 a.m.,

a switch tripped in the Logan city power system. At the same time, SWC’s Dr. Zhu measured a surge of 200,000 amperes in the ionosphere above Cache Valley.

Garth Turley at Logan Light & Power recalled, “Something happened at Utah Power and Light. Our dispatcher found out we had a trip (power outage) during that time."


The iPhone “Space WX” app The first real-time space weather application for smart phones

Provides public education about space weather as it is happening

800 app purchases 01 April 2010 in 37 countries


Where to go from here?USU Space Weather Center projects

Improve real-time accuracy for GPS single frequency users Improve real-time radio communication links for aviation, emergency

responders and Defense agenciesUpgrade iPhone app Space Wx to bring space weather to the publicBring on student and faculty contributors to expand USU outreach


BACKGROUNDW. Kent Tobiska President and Chief Scientist: Space

Environment Technologies Inventor: operational solar irradiances Principal Investigator: multiple NOAA,

USAF AFRL & AFSPC, NASA projects Co-Investigator: NASA Galileo and

TIMED missions ISO (International Standards

Organization): U.S. Lead delegate for the space environment, author of standards

COSPAR (Comm. on Space Research): Thermosphere & Ionosphere Chair

AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics): Atmospheric and Space Environment Technical Committee Committee Chair; Associate Fellow

Herbert C. Carlson University, Dept. Head: National Center NSF: Program Manager, Aeronomy;

created UAF program with 100 PhD’s AFOSR: Chief Scientist AFRL: Founded USAF Space Weather

Center of Excellence; Fellow EOARD: Senior Scientist in partnership

with European Science & Technology Royal Astronomical Society of London:

Fellow Norwegian Academy of Sciences:

Elected member United States Presidential Rank Award:

SES service (ST-5, 1 of 2 in USAF)

Documents

April 1, 2010 Space Weather Center Tobiska & Carlson 1 USU Innovation and Invention Awards Reception Thursday, 01 April 2010