Advanced Orbital Constellations for Solar Storm Defense

Solar storms have the potential to cause catastrophic damage. One that occurred around the end of October 2003 (now called the 2003 Halloween Storm) caused an estimated $27B in damages. That number will only increase as humanity has become more reliant on space-based and electrical infrastructure. However, if we could predict when storms would hit with some accuracy and adjust our use of the technologies that could be affected, we could avoid the worst damage. But, as of now, we don’t have such a system that could help predict the types of events that could cause that damage accurately enough. That is where a new Sun activity monitoring system, described in a recent paper by Leonidas Askianakis of the Technical University of Munich, would help.

In the paper, Dr. Askianakis describes 13 different mission objectives that focus on detecting and tracking coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and sunspots, especially in the so-called “Sun-Earth Line”, which moves as the Earth travels around the Sun throughout a year. The system would be able to reconstruct 3D models of CMEs and keep track of the whole Sun, including the poles, allowing a more holistic understanding of the solar dynamics that cause storms in the first place.

Existing systems, such as the Parker Solar Probe and SOHO, though powerful, aren’t capable of monitoring from more than one perspective, and aren’t always able to capture the SEL in a way that would be useful to predict the destruction caused by solar storms. Even with all the data that those missions and others have collected, we still have significant gaps in our understanding of solar physics that Dr. Askiankis’ mission would help to close.

Fraser discusses how bad solar storms can get.

The underlying mission design would use a technique called an “Elliptical Walker Constellation” of 6 satellites. While that sounds like it could be named after someone, the technique uses orbital mechanics to spread the satellites out across the area around the Sun and allow them to “walk” to provide different perspectives and coverage that wouldn’t be possible with a stationary orbit.

Dr. Askiankis uses a separation technique for each satellite called a Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN) technique, ensuring that the SEL coverage is as complete and consistent as possible. Each satellite would be fitted with an electrical propulsion system and utilize gravity assists from Venus to maintain its orbital path. According to the paper, this system could maintain communications between each of the satellites 94% of the time, allowing almost constant monitoring of the SEL for any potentially dangerous storms.

Each satellite would carry a suite of sensors, including magnetometers, X-ray detectors, gamma-ray detectors, and energetic particle detectors. These instruments would track all the different phenomena that could be potentially interesting (or dangerous) coming from the Sun, allowing scientists to create tell engineers when to turn of devices to save them from potentially crippling damage.

The Carrington Event caused massive problems even back when we weren’t as technologically advanced, as Fraser explains.

The mission itself could cost upwards of $3.8B for its total lifecycle, but stopping the damage from even one storm like the 2003 Halloween Storm could make up a significant chunk of that. Over the 7 years of the mission, Dr. Askiankis calculates that such a system could save between $2B and $10B in damage, essentially offsetting the entire mission cost. 

The original plan would see the project spend the next 6 years in development, with a launch of the six satellites on a single Starship in 2031. Getting into position in the complicated orbital structure would take around four years. Then the constellation would be ready for operations, lasting around 7 years. If it is supported and works as expected, at least during that seven-year window, Earth would be better protected from solar storms than at any point in its several billion-year history.

Learn More:
L. Askianakis – Continuous in-situ and remote sun observation for space weather monitoring and mitigation of infrastructure threats through an optimized heliocentric satellite constellation
UT – Is the World Ready for a Catastrophic Solar Storm?
UT – Project Helianthus – a Solar Sail Driven Geomagnetic Storm Tracker
UT – Predicting Solar Storms Before They Leave the Sun