Eutelsat OneWeb and Imperial College London to explore harnessing the power of its LEO satellite constellation to enable global space weather monitoring to help protect satellite operations as well as power, communications, navigation, and transport systems.

Eutelsat OneWeb, part of Eutelsat Group, the world’s first GEO-LEO satellite operator, has collaborated with Imperial College London to explore harnessing the power of its LEO satellite constellation to enable global space weather monitoring to help protect satellite operations as well as power, communications, navigation and transport systems.

The changing conditions in near-Earth space, known as space weather, pose a threat to a wide range of everyday technologies that people rely upon globally. Space weather can impact a satellite’s electronics and orbits, disturb communications reception, and disrupt power grids on Earth, among many other hazards on crucial systems. Global monitoring of space weather is crucial not only to mitigate its effects in real time, but to improve understanding of how and why these risks occur.

To develop this innovative new capability, Dr. Martin Archer from Imperial College London has been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to work with Eutelsat OneWeb. Together they will investigate data taken from the magnetometer equipment used aboard its satellites for controlling their orientation. These sensors, however, may also be able to detect tiny magnetic signals due to space weather. Identifying these signals in the data will reveal the previously unobserved evolving patterns caused by space weather globally – making it possible to prevent interruptions to technology both in space and on the ground, as well as providing researchers with valuable insight to help improve space weather predictions in the future.

“This fellowship will revolutionise space weather monitoring by harnessing data from the hundreds of satellites in orbit around our planet, thanks to the constellation launched by Eutelsat OneWeb,” said Dr. Martin Archer, Advanced Research Fellow at Imperial College London. “This unprecedented amount of data, distributed globally in space will enable us to monitor space weather better than ever before, boosting our ability to mitigate this hazard to society. It will also provide researchers with crucial observations to unveil how space weather works, improving our ability to predict its effects upon our everyday lives.”

On the collaboration, Maurizio Vanotti, VP New Markets at Eutelsat OneWeb said “We believe the space industry has a responsibility to work sustainably, and to advance causes that can positively help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. Space weather is certainly one of these societal challenges, even modest space weather can affect our satellite operations. We are committed to enabling this ambitious research and innovation at the intersection of academia and business and we look forward to working together to see how our vast data capabilities can help inform our actions in the future.”

For the fellowship, Dr. Archer will use data from Eutelsat OneWeb’s Gen1 satellite Magnetometer and the fellowship will support researchers beginning in 2024 through 2028.

This partnership exemplifies Eutelsat OneWeb’s continued commitment to innovation and scientific discovery.