Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics Released
Investments in New Programs, Satellite Constellations, Space Weather Recommended
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine presents a vision for solar and space physics to advance understanding of physics in space; comprehend the nature of the complex interactions between Earth, the sun, and the surrounding space environment; safeguard Earth from the harmful effects of space weather; and support human space exploration. This vision builds on the past decade’s history-making explorations throughout the heliosphere — the protective “bubble” encompassing the sun and planets and extending to the far reaches of the solar system. The report lays out a comprehensive research strategy and road map for the next decade that, with sufficient investment and increased efforts to coalesce and support the workforce, would make substantive progress on science questions and help achieve critical space weather applications.
“The solar and space physics field is at a pivotal point right now, and we have the opportunity in the coming years to pursue some really exciting science.” Robyn Millan, report committee chair
Solar and space physics encompass a range of sciences that study the heliosphere and its contents and has long emphasized basic research and discovery in the space environment. As society has become increasingly reliant on technological systems, this basic research knowledge has become essential to space weather applied science. The report is built around this dual nature of solar and space physics: to explore Earth’s near-space environment and to serve society.
The mixture of scientific research, exploration, and applied science recommended in the report is integrally linked, with overlapping scientific goals and progress in one area enabling advancements in other areas. Notably, the report recommends the creation of an integrated HelioSystems Laboratory (HSL) that would incorporate a range of missions, projects, and program elements to generate the data needed to expand the frontiers of solar and space physics while making significant field-wide progress. An expansion of the DRIVE framework recommended in the 2013 decadal survey, DRIVE+, would include enhancements in research programs and work with the HSL to generate scientific results.
“The solar and space physics field is at a pivotal point right now, and we have the opportunity in the coming years to pursue some really exciting science — both for science’s sake and to achieve major improvements to our understanding of things like space weather,” said Robyn Millan, the Margaret Anne and Edward Leede ’49 Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College, and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Researching this system of systems is increasingly important for society, and our infrastructure and health, and will have real impacts here on Earth and on our efforts to explore the solar system.”
Multiagency Coordination of a HelioSystems Laboratory
Creating a HelioSystems Laboratory and using its assets effectively will require a coordinated approach by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, coupled with community input, to develop new tools and standards and increase cooperation with international partners. Part of the effort should be focused on an extensive pipeline of demonstration instruments, missions, and projects that can feed future space weather operational missions.
The report recommends that NASA pursue two new discovery-enabling missions as part of HSL through two of its existing programs. Through the Solar Terrestrial Probes program, one mission would leverage recent developments in the satellite industry to launch a groundbreaking, combined constellation of satellites and a pair of imaging spacecraft. These would explore the dynamic couplings and connections across regions and scales in the near-Earth space environment. Through the Living with a Star program, the other mission would consist of a spacecraft that images the sun at its poles, making unique measurements that will answer fundamental questions about how the sun generates its magnetic field and how the field drives solar activity and space weather, and shapes the heliosphere over the course of the solar activity cycle.
Among the existing major programs for solar and space physics, the report says the highest-priority large construction is the NSF’s Next Generation Global Oscillations Network Group, a comprehensive ground-based solar observatory network that also has important space weather applications. NSF should partner with NOAA, the U.S. Department of Defense, and international partners on the network’s development, implementation, and operation. The highest-priority “midscale” projects should include the development of the Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope concept and a study and prototype demonstration of the Distributed Arrays of Small Heterogenous Instruments concept. Together, these two ground-based projects would facilitate vital science across space and solar physics.
Expanding and Safeguarding Humanity’s Home in Space
Space weather events, such as coronal mass ejections and solar flares, are caused by eruptions of plasma and magnetic field structures from the sun’s atmosphere and by bursts of radiation. These events can result in visually stunning auroras or damaging geomagnetic storms. Space weather and storms can cause errors in navigation and communication systems, disrupt electricity grids, generate radiation hazardous to aircraft and space-based crews, and, due to changes in the density of Earth’s tenuous upper atmosphere, heighten collision risks among the rapidly increasing number of satellites and space debris in low-Earth orbit.
Focused research over the next decade would result in greater ability to forecast coronal mass ejections, solar flares, and geomagnetic storms; monitor radiation environments for crewed and robotic missions; and model low-Earth orbit satellite and debris trajectories, says the report.
“Lack of progress in solar and space physics over the next decade could have devastating consequences to society, in part because it would inhibit our ability to predict and mitigate against potentially harmful space weather impacts,” said committee co-chair Stephen Fuselier, acting vice president of the Space Science Division at Southwest Research Institute. “While making substantive progress will require modest additional investments from the government, research into these areas is of paramount importance. This report helps provide a window into the future of the field and safeguard a growing range of industries here on Earth, and enables humanity to become a true space-faring civilization.”
The report also recommends that:
NSF should develop a strategic space weather plan, expanding and augmenting its current ground-based assets into a coordinated instrument network
NOAA should establish a space weather research program and partner with the DOD to develop large-scale predictive space weather models
NASA should grow the spaceflight element of the Heliophysics Space Weather program, and seek opportunities to include space weather enhancements on NASA and other federal agency missions
Unifying the Field
The report says that solidifying a standard and recognized name and identity for solar and space physics would benefit efforts in data gathering, workforce recruitment, education, and public outreach. The discipline encompasses numerous science communities, and research is increasingly benefiting from interdisciplinary teams with expertise in other fields such as applied math and machine learning, for example. The lack of a shared identity hinders attempts to assess the state of the profession and its ability to articulate its science and applications broadly.
NASA, NSF, and NOAA should fund a professional organization or a team of researchers to build a sustainable structure for continuous longitudinal data gathering from the undergraduate level and up. Agency support for a solar and space physics consortium would enable assessments of the number of Ph.D.s, postdoctoral researchers, and permanent positions in the field, thereby informing those considering their career paths. The consortium could also coordinate efforts to encourage pathways into solar and space physics for experts in fields such as machine learning. The agencies should also proactively enhance diversity across the solar and space physics workforce to ensure that the best scientists from all backgrounds can be recruited and retained.
The committee that wrote the report was supported by five study panels and five crosscutting working groups. It drew on 450 papers from the scientific community, presentations by numerous invited speakers, outreach to professional society conferences, and town hall events.
The study — undertaken by the Committee on a Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) — was sponsored by NASA, NSF, the U.S. Department of the Air Force, and the U.S. Department of Commerce/NOAA. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.