Strengthening UK space weather capabilities with SWIMMR
SWIMMR (Space Weather Instrumentation, Measurement, Modelling and Risk) is a £20 million, four-year programme that will improve the UK’s capabilities for space weather monitoring and prediction.
There will be an emphasis on space radiation, which can affect aircraft systems, changes in the upper atmosphere, affecting communications, and surges in the current in power grids and other ground-level systems. These are significant risks to the infrastructures we rely on in daily life and are recorded in the UK’s National Risk Register.
Programme overview
SWIMMR will develop and deploy new instruments, models and services to support the UK space weather community and the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre. This programme will significantly add to the UK’s capability to predict and mitigate the hazards of space weather, as well as providing a basis for wider international collaboration over the four year lifetime of the proposal and beyond.
The funding forms part of the Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF), delivered by the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) to drive an increase in high quality multi- and interdisciplinary research and innovation. It will ensure that UKRI’s investment links up effectively with government research priorities and opportunities. The SWIMMR proposal originated from a submission to the STFC exercise in “Developing a World-Class Programme”, which was undertaken in June 2018.
The idea was further developed for submission to Wave 2 of UKRI’s Strategic Priorities Fund in discussions between STFC, NERC and Met Office, with support from the Chief Scientists of the Department of Business, Education and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence. The programme has been outlined in close association with the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC).
The programme will be delivered through a series of activities managed by either STFC or NERC. The STFC funding component will be delivered via a mixture of open calls for research projects and commissioned work under standard public sector procurement rules. Both types of activity will directly help improve the ability of the Met Office to predict space weather events so as to reduce their potential impact. Applications for the SWIMMR S5 project on “networkable instruments for ground-level neutron monitoring” closed on April 13th 2021.
Objectives
The SWIMMR programme will facilitate a significant improvement in the UK’s monitoring and forecasting capabilities for space weather, to mitigate those aspects with the highest potential for impact on economic and societal activities. This is needed because of UK’s ever-increasing reliance on modern technology; not just our growing dependence on space-based systems for communications, global positioning and time-keeping but our aspirations to become a leading space-faring nation, based on capabilities to both launch and support UK-licensed space assets.
As well as operation of satellites and other space hardware, the programme addresses space weather effects at lower altitudes, such as radiation effects on aviation, and on the Earth’s surface, such as Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) in power grids. When realised in the correct way, the benefits will be manifest in both the governmental and commercial sectors. This ability to produce a world-leading capability for space weather forecasting and mitigation will not only safeguard our considerable national investment in space-based infrastructure (now part of CNI), but also confirm the UK’s reputation as an international leader, with potential to collaborate with key partners internationally.
SWIMMR has the following high level objectives, each of which includes a number of lower level objectives:
High level objective 1: Mitigate the potential radiation hazards of space weather to satellites and aviation operations
- Produce and operate one or more miniaturised radiation monitors for use in satellite and aerospace applications
- Facilitate the testing and modelling of the response of technological systems to radiation
- Deploy and operate a network of ground-based radiation monitors to better quantify the radiation hazards for the aerospace industry
- Produce an updated and improved set of models for nowcasting and forecasting radiation effects on spacecraft to be used in services delivered by MOSWOC
- Produce an updated and improved set of models for nowcasting and forecasting radiation effects on air traffic and other aerospace users to be used in services delivered by MOSWOC
- Produce an updated and improved set of products and models for forecasting the impact of atmospheric drag on spacecraft to be used in services delivered by MOSWOC
High level objective 2: Mitigate potential space weather effects on communication and global positioning
- Improve the UK modelling of the ionospheric effects on radio communications (both HF and trans-ionospheric propagation) to be used in services delivered by MOSWOC.
High level objective 3: Mitigate the potential risks of space weather to electric power distribution
- Produce an updated and improved set of products and services for forecasting the impact of Geomagnetically Induced Currents on power grids and make them available through MOSWOC
- Improve and operationalise the current suite of models for predicting the evolution of the solar wind from the Sun to the L1 Lagrange point
Overarching Objectives
In addition to this, the project has the following overarching objectives:
- Establish a world leading UK system for space weather modelling and forecasting
- Position the UK as a global leader in monitoring and mitigating effects of space weather
- Develop a framework for supporting the transition of models and data sets from research in the academic community to operational use for space weather forecasting by MOSWOC
- Produce an updated space weather impact assessment study, building on the Royal Academy of Engineering report of 2013
