Federal Agencies Agree to Join Forces on Space Weather Efforts

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement with the Department of the Air Force, the National Science Foundation and NASA to support interagency collaboration on space weather research and operations.

The agreement provides a framework to coordinate space weather efforts, including efforts to transition modeling, observation, forecasting and other capabilities from research to operations, NOAA said Friday. 

It is also expected to facilitate feedback and data-sharing on how space weather affects critical infrastructure.

Stephen Volz, director of NOAA’s Satellite and Information Services, said interagency collaboration on the research-to-operations transition is key to supporting the commercial space sector and reducing potential harms from space weather phenomena.

The White House’s Space Weather Operations, Research and Mitigation Subcommittee had identified the lack of a framework as an obstacle to efforts to enhance forecasting for the public and private sectors. Congress passed the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow Act to require agencies to set up formal research-to-operations mechanisms.