Specific Challenge:

Space weather services exist already today in Europe and in several countries outside the EU. New services are also being developed (e.g. in ESA’s SSA programme and in EU Seventh Framework Programme projects). Their goal is to observe and to predict a range of solar events that may impact the near Earth environment including orbiting satellites and ground based systems. However there is a lack of understanding of the effects of space weather on space systems including spacecrafts, payloads and living organisms in space as well as on ground-based infrastructure.

Scope:

Exploratory work studying space weather with a view to enhancing the understanding of space weather and its impact. Proposals can cover the full range of space weather phenomena from the solar cycle, flares and coronal mass ejections to the effects of the solar wind in the near-earth environment and the evolution in between. There is scope for cooperation with international partners with relevant expertise (entities from third countries could benefit from EU funding under this topic).

This activity shall address space weather and its effects, impacts and mitigation techniques with application to aerospace and ground systems.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 1 and 1.5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected Impact:

Proposals are expected to improve the understanding of Space Weather phenomena and their impact on space systems and terrestrial infrastructure, and are also expected to analyse viable mitigation strategies, and to demonstrate how these add value compared to existing mitigation strategies.