Overview
‘Severe Space Weather Impacts on UK Critical National Infrastructure’ is a strategic report commissioned as part of the 5-year, £20 million Space Weather Instrumentation, Measurement, Modelling and Risk (SWIMMR) programme.
Severe space weather events are not new, but society’s exposure to their impact has grown significantly in the last few decades. This is due to our increasing reliance on technologies such as satellites for communications and positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), and the power grids that support these and other fundamental services, such as transport, health and finance.
The report, written by Starion UK and its partners, know.space and the University of Northumbria, focusses on four critical infrastructure sectors identified as most vulnerable to direct impact from space weather: space, energy, communications and transport. It is based on interviews with over 100 organisations in the UK, Europe and the United States including operators, space agencies, regulators and government.
Based on the latest scientific understanding, the report describes the different effects of space weather and their impacts on the near-Earth and terrestrial environments and the technologies that critical infrastructures are reliant on. Based on a reasonable worst-case scenario (a one in one-hundred-year event) we provide a timeline of how a severe space weather event lasting several weeks could unfold as an active region moves across the solar disc as the sun rotates.
The report provides a high-level impact assessment in each of the critical infrastructure sectors addressed and makes recommendations to Government policymakers and other critical infrastructure decision-makers to improve the UK’s resilience to space weather.
Recommendations include backup power solutions, coordinated and collaborative responses in specific areas, and a centralised public messaging system.
- Download the ‘Severe Space Weather Impacts on UK Critical National Infrastructure’ report (PDF format)
- Download the ‘Annex to the Severe Space Weather Impacts on UK Critical National Infrastructure’ report (PDF format)
Contents
- Foreword
- Priority recommendations
- Introduction
- Space Weather Hazards
- Severe Space Weather Timeline
- Cross-Sectoral Exploration
- Space Sector
- Energy Sector
- Communications Sector
- Transport Sector – Road
- Transport Sector – Rail
- Transport Sector – Maritime
- Transport Sector – Aviation
- Emerging Technologies
- Space Weather Post-SWIMMR
- Conclusions