- Experts from Starion Group and its partners across Europe have been chosen to lead a project to specify, build and deploy a Space Weather Payload Data Centre (SWE PDC) for the European Space Agency (ESA).
- The scalable, cloud-based SWE PDC will support the processing and distribution of relevant data from current and planned third-party space weather instruments on a number of different satellites and ground sensors.
- Planned future phases will support upcoming ESA missions, including Vigil, which will provide advanced warning of space weather events, and Aurora, which will provide information on space weather effects over Earth’s poles.
PRESS RELEASE
Starion Group has signed a contract to lead development of a new ESA Space Weather Payload Data Centre to boost Europe’s resilience to the potentially devastating effects of solar activity. Fast access to the latest information on the Sun’s activity is vital because solar flares, radiation storms, coronal mass ejections and geomagnetic storms can cause interruptions to power supplies, communications and provision of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) information, with potentially severe consequences.
During the 3-year first phase of the project, Starion and its partners will develop a secure, scalable, cloud-based payload data centre capable of processing data from space weather instruments on current and planned third-party space missions and distributing it to organisations across Europe and internationally. The ESA SWE PDC will comprise three main subsystems: the Data Hub; Data Processing Framework; and Monitoring and Control. This project will also include the development of enhancements for the SWE Data System supporting the ESA Space Weather Expert Service Network. While it will be a subsystem of the existing SWE Data Centre, some elements of this will be replaced, enhanced or migrated into the new Data Hub.
The ESA SWE PDC will ingest raw data from the space weather instruments and do the processing necessary so the data (so-called Level 1 [L1]) can be used by experts to create forecasts, alerts and other data products (Level 2 and above), which may then be made available via the Data Hub and ESA SWE Service portal. Data processing has to be fast to enable users to generate timely space weather forecasts and alerts to the public and to commercial, governmental and international organisations.
The project is starting as the Sun nears the peak of its current 11-year solar activity cycle, which has already seen several major solar flares, including one emitted in the direction of Earth. Fortunately, while some minor effects on satellites were reported, the most noteworthy aspect was the auroras seen extensively across both Northern and Southern hemispheres. Prior to this, the last major solar storms to affect Earth – the so-called Halloween storms – occurred in 2003; these caused serious problems for satellites, aircraft and GPS systems. Twenty years later, our dependence on satellites for many critical services, and on power systems that could be affected by currents induced in the ground by a geomagnetic storm, is far greater.
Arne Matthyssen, Starion Chief Commercial and Technology Officer, said: “We’re proud to have been chosen to deliver this key space weather project for ESA, for which we can draw on the combined expertise of Starion teams across Europe and of our partners. There are a number of important considerations for the ESA SWE PDC that we will collectively address, such as the need for the system to improve current capabilities but also to support future space weather missions, and therefore be both scalable and flexible. It also needs to be very secure to ensure high availability, integrity and continuous provision of the data – for that reason, we will employ a ‘zero trust’ approach to its design. Being cloud native and cloud agnostic is also key, to give ESA the choice of deployment options in future.”
Juha-Pekka Luntama, ESA’s Head of Space Weather Office, added: “We recognise the importance of having the best possible systems to collect and distribute data from all relevant space missions to improve Europe’s resilience to the potentially debilitating effects of space weather. This doesn’t just mean launching new missions to acquire the data, such as Vigil, but also having a secure, comprehensive Payload Data Centre that can store, process and manage the data in a flexible way to allow for future developments and future missions. We look forward to seeing this project come to fruition, and then moving on to further phases of development.”
Starion experts from across Europe will collaborate on this crucial project. Specialists from Starion in Belgium will contribute their experience in space weather projects for ESA, data hubs and cybersecurity, and in deploying complex systems to ESA’s cloud. Also involved are space weather experts from Starion UK, who are leading a number of projects for ESA, including the SWE-VIII project, which was a precursor to this development. The team from Starion Italia will add their deep knowledge of payload data ground systems, support to security engineering and applying model-based system engineering (MBSE) to such projects, while experts from Starion Deutschland will provide support around integration and operational validation.
Starion’s partners in this project include Solenix, who will integrate the data processing algorithms and support maintenance activities, The ServerLabs, who bring big data and cloud computing expertise, SpaceIT, who are experts in microservices and RAL Space, who bring space weather scientific expertise.
Further information
Contact details: Isabelle Roels, VP Marketing and Communications (i.roels@stariongroup.eu)
Main image: Vigil mission © ESA
