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What’s new: Slides from the National Air Space Roundtable on Space Weather. Interesting info, especially for those not familiar with the issue.
Why it’s important: With all the focus on malicious jamming and spoofing recently, folks tend to forget about the threat of space weather to GNSS – and other satellites. Especially to GNSS, though, as signals could be disrupted for days even if the satellites are unharmed.
What else to know:
- While we are on the downside of the current 11 year cycle of solar activity (11 years is the average – they can last up to 14 years), the folks at the National Center for Atmospheric Research tell us that the strongest solar events are not associated with solar maximums. They happen at random throughout any given cycle. So no reason to breath a sigh of relief and think we are any safer.
- That said, scientists say it is more the type of the event than the strength.
- During planting season in the northern hemisphere la st year, solar activity impacted farmers using precision agriculture. Demon-Possessed Tractors.
- Dr. McGraw was recently installed as the President of the Institute of Navigation – Congratulations, Gary!
- There isn’t a narrative to go with the slides, but we think they are informative enough on their own. We hope they stimulate your interest and motivate you to find out more.
Interesting graph from the presentation.
