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24-10-2022
SHEIRA: using LOFAR data in a space weather product demonstrator
| Submitter: | Carla Baldovin |
| Description: | SHeI-RA (Solar, heliospheric, ionospheric with radio astronomy) is a feasibility study funded by ESA that started in March 2022 and is the continuation of the project “LOFAR in SSA SWE Services” (2018-2021). The project is run by ASTRON’s M. Mevius, P. Zucca, M. Mancini, C. Baldovin in collaboration with C. Tiburzi (former ASTRON now INAF). The Space Weather (SWE) Segment of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program aims at providing owners and operators of critical spaceborne and ground-based infrastructure information to mitigate the adverse impacts of space weather. The SWE Service Networkportal is the interface with the users. The objective of SHeI-RA is to develop data products that can potentially become part of this network in the future. In the previous project we identified data product candidates, refined in consultation with end users. During this project we work on further developing the data products while engaging with end users to raise awareness about the added value LOFAR data in the advent of adverse space weather events. The project develops data products in three domains: Solar: Solar dynamic spectrum and investigation of machine learning techniques to detect and classify Type III solar radio bursts. Heliospheric: solar wind density derived from observations of pulsars. Ionospheric: scintillation index including parameters such as time, station location, azimuth, elevation. Correlation studies with GNSS scintillation and with HF communication disruption. On October 13, we had a progress meeting with ESA, after successfully completing the 2 first milestones in the project. During the meeting we discussed the status of the product development and plans for the continuation of this activity that includes consultation with potential end users in the form of a simulated space weather event that could trigger an observing campaign. SHeI-RA is featured in ESA's SSA SWE portal https://swe.ssa.esa.int/sheira |
| Copyright: | C. Baldovin |
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