SH14A-02
Requirements for an Operational Coronagraph
Monday, 14 December 2015: 16:15
2011 (Moscone West)
Russell Howard1, Angelos Vourlidas2, Richard Anthony Harrison3, Mario Mark Bisi3, Simon P Plunkett4, Dennis G Socker5, Christopher J Eyles3, David F Webb6, Craig E DeForest7, Jackie A Davies3, Timothy A Howard8, Curt A de Koning9, Nat Gopalswamy10, Joseph M Davila10, James Tappin3 and Bernard V Jackson11, (1)U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States, (2)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Space Department, Laurel, MD, United States, (3)Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, United Kingdom, (4)US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States, (5)Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States, (6)Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, United States, (7)Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO, United States, (8)Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (9)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (10)NASA Goddard SFC, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (11)University of California San Diego, Center for Astrophysics and Space Science, La Jolla, CA, United States
Abstract:
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have been shown to be the major driver of the non-recurrent space weather events and geomagnetic storms. The utility of continuously monitoring such events has been very effectively demonstrated by the LASCO experiment on the SOHO mission. However SOHO is aging, having been launched 20 years ago on Dec 2, 1995. The STEREO mission, in which two spacecraft in orbits about the sun are drifting away from earth, has shown the utility of multiple viewpoints off the sun-earth line. Up to now the monitoring of CMES has been performed by scientific instruments such as LASCO and SECCHI with capabilities beyond those required to record the parameters that are needed to forecast the impact at earth. However, there is great interest within the US NOAA and the UK Met Office to launch operational coronagraphs to L1 and L5. An ad-hoc group was formed to define the requirements of the L5 coronagraph. In this paper we present some requirements that must be met by operational coronagraphs. The Office of Naval Research is gratefully acknowledged.
