Space weather can come in several different forms, but scientists are investigating its overall affect on Earth's global communications, television and Internet signals.
According to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) press release, space weather such as solar flares, geomagnetic storms and other types of geomagnetic radiation can interfere with geostationary satellites, altering Internet and cable signals.
Geostationary satellites are designed to orbit the Earth, over one specific location, at the same speed as the planet turns. They are built to last up to 15 years with protective shielding, but radiation and charged particles can wear down these shields and deplete the satellite's performance.
"If we can understand how the environment affects these satellites, and we can design to improve the satellites to be more tolerant, then it would be very beneficial not just in cost, but also in efficiency," said Whitney Lohmeyer, an MIT graduate student of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
In a study published in the journal Space Weather, the team analyzed 26 separate incidents of satellite failure in eight different geostationary units over a 16-year period. The researchers found that most failures occurred during a declining solar cycle and in the midst of high-energy electron activity.
The scientists theorized that the charged particles accumulate in the satellites over time and damage their amplifiers from the inside. Amplifiers are important components for sending signals back to Earth. Lohmeyer said TV and Internet capabilities also complicate the matter.
"Users are starting to demand more capabilities," Lohmeyer notes. "They want to start video-streaming data, they want to communicate faster with higher data rates. So design is changing - along with susceptibilities to space weather and radiation that didn't used to exist, but are now becoming a problem."
Scientists are now attempting to forecast space weather and build satellites to withstand it, but even that is not always possible. Kerri Cahoy, an assistant professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, said space weather is still to unpredictable to forecast.
"Space weather is a lot more dynamic than models predict, and there are many different ways that charged particles can wreak havoc on your satellite's electronics," she said. "The hard part about satellites is that when something goes wrong, you don't get it back to do analysis and figure out what happened."
The scientists are working with Inmarsat, a London-based company, to better prepare satellites for space weather and its unpredictability.
"Once you get into a 15-year mission, you may run out of redundant amplifiers," Lohmeyer said. "If a company has invested over $200 million in a satellite, they need to be able to assure that it works for that period of time. We really need to improve our method of quantifying and understanding the space environment, so we can better improve design."
