Objectives of the service
As industries expand their technological systems, they are increasingly encountering operational disruptions caused by space weather phenomena. While advancements have been made in monitoring and forecasting space weather, its practical application and added value for ground-based industries remain underdeveloped.
The objective of this feasibility study is to determine to what extent a space weather alert service can meaningfully support industrial operations—evaluating its added value for day-to-day decision-making, mitigation strategies, and operational integration—while rigorously assessing both technical feasibility and commercial viability to define a clear roadmap toward implementation and a potential follow-up demonstration project. Ultimately, the aim is to identify a profitable service with one or more prospective customers and define how it can be embedded into their operational workflows.
Users and their needs
During the study we investigate the three domains and their specific needs:
Electricity Networks: Geomagnetic storms can cause geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) that risk transformer saturation and damage, so grid operators have a need for timely forecasts, nowcasts, and alerts to support operational decision-making and risk mitigation.
Aviation: The air navigation service provider requires actionable forecasts and real-time indicators coupled with alerts to maintain situational awareness and support operational decisions before and during space weather events.
GNSS-dependent systems and services: Ionospheric disturbances lead to delays, scintillation, and positioning errors; despite existing mitigation techniques, providers still need space weather forecasts, nowcasts as well as hindcasts for localised information to manage service quality and customer support.
Service/ system concept
The service candidate system concept foresees a two-component system:
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An alerting system provides an early-warning notification of significant space weather activity and then escalates with refined, actionable updates as the event is confirmed and unfolds, delivered via predefined channels according to user-agreed thresholds and procedures.
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A web-hosted, user-tailored visual representation delivers an integrated, real-time visual overview of space weather conditions and alerts, highlighting status against user-defined thresholds to support situational awareness and operational decision-making.
Space Added Value
The unique value of the proposed service lies in its use of space-based observations to provide early warning of geomagnetic disturbances that may impact the Austrian power grid. Imaging observations are used to predict the arrival time of coronal mass ejections at Earth while their in situ detection at the L1 point enables the estimation of possible impacts on ground.
Current Status
Early in January 2026 the feasibility study Space Weather Alert System conducted by GeoSphere Austria successfully kicked off. The first phase with the goal of outlining a comprehensive market landscape for Space Weather Services in Austria has been finished. The feasibility study continues with the investigations to what extent a space weather service for the domain of electricity networks is operationally useful, technically feasible and commercially viable.
Prime Contractor(s)
