Solar Activity And Space Weather

Science PI: A. Gordon Emslie, Western Kentucky University NASA Partners: Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL; Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

ABSTRACT The Kentucky NASA EPSCoR Program’s mission is to enhance research and intellectual capacity of the state's universities and colleges through strategic investments in NASA-priority research areas and to increase researcher competitiveness for non-EPSCoR NASA funding. Motivated by this, and by the recent passage of the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act, we propose to collaborate with two NASA Centers (MSFC and GSFC) to improve the identification, modeling, and near-real-time forecasting of solar flares. We propose three main research partnerships: (1) the use of machine learning techniques to analyze images and light curves in the extreme ultraviolet in order to detect patterns that are precursors to flare activity, (2) the development of techniques to produce high-throughput multi-layer optics for use in instrumentation designed to detect changes that indicate a solar flare is imminent, and (3) the modeling of the response of the solar atmosphere to the impulsive energy release in a solar flare.

These research partnerships combine multiple areas of expertise, including heliophysics, materials science, and computer science, and they involve researchers at Western Kentucky University, Eastern Kentucky University, and the University of Kentucky in collaborative efforts with two NASA Centers. Together this combination of basic and applied collaborative research efforts will serve to increase Kentucky’s research capacity and reputation by establishing the Commonwealth as a major NASA partner in the national priority area of space weather forecasting. They will also build a competitive base of personnel and infrastructure, enabling researchers at Kentucky institutions of higher learning to develop sustained research endeavors with NASA and other Federal partners.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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