An international team of scientists led by a professor from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology has won a grant from the European Union to develop space weather forecasting systems.
Skoltech professor Yuri Shprits’ team is developing equipment that can predict the level of radiation to which humans and satellites are exposed during space exploration, a project they call PROGRESS.
“We will take the knowledge that was obtained over recent decades about the Sun, the solar wind and near Earth environment and transfer it into applications,” he was quoted as saying on the Skoltech website.
“The aim is to combine a number of computer codes and observations to develop real-time prediction of the hazards to satellites and humans in space radiation environment.”
The grant is part of the EU Research and Innovation program’s Horizon 2020 initiative, which has nearly 80 billion euros’ worth of funding available from 2014 through 2020.
PROGRESS involves launching new satellites into orbit around the Earth. The equipment will combine space weather readings with new computer algorithms to provide high-accuracy predications of potentially hazardous conditions in real time.
Reliable monitoring of the space environment is becoming increasingly important as the access to it becomes easier and cheaper.
Private satellites and space tourism are forming what is known as the new space economy, and more industry players are concerned with protecting their assets from dangerous events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, bursts of solar wind and magnetic fields from the sun.
Potential clients include the space agencies, research groups and private companies.
Shprits’ team is composed of researchers from Russia and six other countries.