With the increasing importance of space weather aspects in space missions, it is important to provide industry and other users with the means to access space weather data and services. The Service Development Activities (SDA) developed as part of, and associated with, ESA's Space Weather Applications Pilot Project provide a series of applications, services and data products addressing the diverse needs of a wide range of Space Weather service users. The products resulting from these activities will form the Space Weather European Network - SWENET. The SWENET Infrastructure has been operational since 2005 as a central resource centre for space weather activities, providing interested users access to space weather data and services.
For more information about SWENET or the ESA Space Weather Applications Pilot Project, please contact A. Glover (ESA) or P. Beltrami (etamax). |
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Space weather describes the state of the environment in space near the earth. The sun is the main driver of space weather. Sudden ejections of plasma and magnetic field structures from the sun's atmosphere called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) together with sudden bursts of radiation termed solar flares all cause space weather effects at the earth. In addition, non-solar sources such as galactic cosmic rays, meteoroids and space debris can all be considered as altering space weather conditions at the earth.
Space weather effects are highly relevant to our daily life on earth. There are influences on topics such as crew and passenger radiation risks on aircraft, communication problems, effects on synthetic apperture radar systems, GPS systems, etc. Even power-line failures and corrosion effects observed in pipelines on earth may be the direct result of space weather induced effects. This further stresses the importance of this discipline not only for the future of manned missions inspace, but also to the present situation of life on earth.
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You can use the following functionalities with the SWENET portal (all require login):
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The SWENET team is pleased to inform you about the latest features and functions upgrades as well as interface enhancements to the Space Weather European Network Portal, version 3.09.
Upgrades:
Index Quality Statistics made easier by introducing compact vs. full view functionality, and by adding an explanatory section on space weather indices. The service DIAS (European Digital Upper Atmosphere Server) has been added with the following data:
- foF2 maps over Europe
- Daily sunspot numbers plots
The service SWACI was introduced; there are no public data products yet. The service BINCASTS added smoothed monthly sunspot data, a long-term data set. The service Ionosfera added more detailed amateur radio connection data. The service SIDC added Presto report and Ursigram data, as well as EISN, PISN and DISN (estimated, provisional and definitive international sunspot numbers). Java webservice users should update to the demo client 1.01, as the interface packages have changed.
If you have any suggestions or ideas for the Space Weather European Network Portal, please do not hesitate to contact the SWENET team at swenet@etamax.de.
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