Space Weather Report
The forecast calls for solar storms and rad-hard remedies
In the quaint olden days of 2011, cyber warfare risk was compared to solar flare risk. But, how to predict or better yet how to expect?
We will come back to cyber warfare as the new kinetic field of space enables the new cybernetic spatial surface. For now, let’s focus on solar flares and solar wind.
It is easy to take terrestrial weather reporting for granted, even locally. But, when solar activity occurs, that’s when the “fudge factor” is even more important to out-design for what you cannot outrun or avoid as a survival buffer during these events.
Recently, NASA and IBM released a model trained on solar data. It is reasonable to expect a “space weather report” (and others) to become essential as solar powered orbital datacenters are put into service.
So, it you consider the utility value of the half-dozen space weather reports, it is also useful to consider which commercial entities will become patrons or merely benefit from publicly funded sourcing and presentation of data. To achieve scale, there will need to be a clear anticipation for the commercialization analogy of the alleged AccuWeather and National Weather Service (NWS) terrestrial weather data licensing and distribution imbroglio.
| Rank | Agency | Utility | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NOAA SWPC | Operational Survival | The “Kill Switch” Trigger. |
| 2 | SIDC | Strategic Lifecycle Modeling | The ROI Calculator. |
| 3 | ESA Space Weather (SWE) | Component Engineering & Hardening | The Design Manual. |
| 4 | GFZ Potsdam | Precision Orbit Determination | The Fuel Saver. |
| 5 | NICT | Downlink/Uplink Integrity | The Customer SLA. |
| 6 | Australian BoM (SWS) | Southern Station Telemetry | The “Blind Spot” Fix. Literally, watch your six. |
Oddly enough, NOAA SWPC is showing this message on their homepage at the moment: 😳 #HugOps
Possible, Temporary Products and Services Disruption Through 17 December, 2025 published: Wednesday, December 17, 2025 01:26 UTC SWPC products and services availability may be temporarily disrupted due to network changes through 17 December, 2025.
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