Solar Shield Experiment Aims to Keep the Power On

When you flip a light switch to illuminate the pages of your favorite book or reach into your refrigerator for that last piece of key lime pie, you expect the electric current coursing through the outlets to power everything from your lights to your nifty new big-screen television. When the power goes out, it can be more than just an inconvenience.

NASA’s Solar Shield experiment explores how timely space weather forecasts can help power companies keep the power flowing to the many appliances and electronic gadgets we rely on every day.

We consume electricity at an ever-increasing pace. As power companies try to keep up with the demand, they operate ever closer to the limit of their capabilities, leaving little margin for error. Just as these companies rely on advanced warning of severe weather that could disrupt the North American power grid, they also may soon come to rely on near real-time forecasts of severe space weather.

Space weather originates on the sun. Solar eruptions such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can spew billions of tons of electrically charged particles toward Earth on the solar wind. When this space storm of particles interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere and upper atmosphere, the particles release their energy and sometimes cause a geomagnetically induced current (GIC). GICs are currents flowing in power transmission lines generated by geomagnetic space storms.

Like an unexpected surge of power that overloads your computer if not properly protected, GICs can saturate high-voltage power transformers, causing damage or electric blackouts on a much larger scale. Such an event happened in March 1989, when a space storm took out Canada’s Hydro-Quebec power grid for more than nine hours and resulted in significant economic losses.

The experimental Solar Shield system forecasts what effects earthbound space weather is likely to have on the North American power grid.

“The Solar Shield experiment explores providing advance warning of severe space weather to North American power utility companies in a way that is tailored to their specific needs and locations,” says Dr. Antti Pulkkinen, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Earth Science and Technology Center, which is operated at NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The researchers use data from observations of the sun and solar wind to estimate the probability of GICs impacting individual power grid nodes, or stations. Observations of CMEs from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) – a joint NASA/ESA mission – and observations of the solar wind from NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft drive computer models that generate a space weather forecast.

“Using observations of the sun and solar wind to drive our space physics models, we generate advanced warning of space weather that can affect high-voltage power transmissions,” says Pulkkinen.

Dr. Pulkkinen and his team utilize computer models at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to provide two types of space weather forecasts. Long-term (1-2 days) forecasts use SOHO data and take a few hours to generate. Short-term forecasts (30-60 minutes) use solar-wind observations from ACE and can be generated in a mere 10-15 minutes.

The CCMC, which hosts various models provided by the space physics community, tests and evaluates models and supports space weather forecasters as the models transition into operation. The Solar Shield experiment, now undergoing such testing and evaluation, may be transitioned into actual space weather operations by non-NASA entities in the near future.

The Solar Shield project is a collaborative effort between NASA and the Electric Power Research Institute.

Source: by Laura Layton, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Related stories:

Robot Scout: Fly Me (Safely) to the Moon
The first attempt to land humans on the moon -- Apollo 11 -- was a triumph that almost ended in disaster. At just 400 feet from the lunar surface, with only about a minute's worth of fuel remaining, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin saw that their ship's computer was taking them directly into a crater the size of a football field, strewn with SUV-sized boulders. They quickly took control from the computer, flew over the crater and touched down in a smoother area beyond, cutting the engine with just 30 seconds of fuel on the readout.
Future for clean energy lies in 'big bang' of evolution
Amid mounting agreement that future clean, "carbon-neutral", energy will rely on efficient conversion of the sun's light energy into fuels and electric power, attention is focusing on one of the most ancient groups of organism, the cyanobacteria. Dramatic progress has been made over the last decade understanding the fundamental reaction of photosynthesis that evolved in cyanobacteria 3.7 billion years ago, which for the first time used water molecules as a source of electrons to transport energy derived from sunlight, while converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. The light harvesting systems gave the bacteria their blue ("cyano") colour, and paved the way for plants to evolve by "kidnapping" bacteria to provide their photosynthetic engines, and for animals by liberating oxygen for them to breathe, by splitting water molecules. For humans now there is the tantalising possibility of tweaking the photosynthetic reactions of cyanobacteria to produce fuels we want such as hydrogen, alcohols or even hydrocarbons, rather than carbohydrates.
QinetiQ says it has broken unmanned flight record
(AP) -- An ultra-lightweight plane built from carbon fiber and powered using paper-thin solar panels has broken the world record for longest-lasting unmanned flight, its manufacturer claimed Sunday.
Living with a Star
What if you woke up one morning and found your whole planet had been swallowed by the atmosphere of a star?
Evolution as Described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics
(PhysOrg.com) -- Often, physics and biology appear as different worlds, from a scientist’s point of view. Each discipline has its own language and concepts, and physicists and biologists tend to look at the world in different ways – not least being from inanimate and animate perspectives.
A Brief History of Solar Sails
sō’lar sāil, n. - A gossamer material that, when unfurled in the vacuum of space, feels the pressure of sunlight and propelled by said pressure may carry a ship among the stars.
Phoenix Mars Lander Confirms Martian Water
(PhysOrg.com) -- Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
Virgin Galactic unveils space tourism craft 'WhiteKnightTwo' (Update 2)
British tycoon Richard Branson on Monday unveiled a futuristic aircraft that will ferry tourists to the edge of the heavens as part of Virgin Galactic's much-anticipated space program.

News discussion:

Space & Earth science news