Auroral Activity

[tw]

The national electric grid typically plans for events a full day in advance. Since power plants can take a full day or longer to power cycle. And since a blackout (power loss) can take days to restore. Unfortunately, solar storms provide little warning.

Triana (now called Deep Space Climate Observatory or DSCOVR) will be launched to the L1 Lagrange point. A gravitational well between the earth and sun. Where sun observations will not be obstructed by the moon or earth. At best, this can only provide a 30 - 45 minute warning. At least that is something.

However polarity of a CMS ejection would be unknown. A northern polarity can be destructive. A southern polarity is made irrelevant by the earth's magnetic field. Some power grids and communication operators might cause o a day's interruption for an event that was irrelevant. In part because so little warning is available.

A solar event in the 1850s is feared. Some telegraph operators were even burned by EMF transients on long telegraph wires. What would another storm of that size do to a nation more dependent than on a telegraph?

List of operators for this launch include a SpaceX rocket, paid for by the Air Force, launched by NASA, and then turned over to NOAA to become part of our weather forecasts.

However, DSCOVR provides no new capabilities. It only replaces ACE which is now 15 years old. And like so many essential satellites (ie SOHO), otherwise has no replacement due to so much science stifled in the first decade of the 21st Century.