Description
Observations are critical to implementing timely strategies for mitigating potentially damaging space weather effects. The UK has an extensive heritage in developing and deploying scientific instrumentation to study space weather phenomena, on which basis a plethora of novel developments in space-borne space weather instrumentation are currently underway in UK academic, government and industrial establishments. In order to capitalize on these innovative developments - while exploiting the potential of the new generation of small-form UK satellites to provide high-quality data at a lower cost in low-Earth Orbit (LEO) and potentially beyond - we propose a national in-orbit pathfinder mission. UK-ODESSI (UK-Orbital pathfinDEr for Space-borne, Space-weather Instrumentation) will host a suite of emergent UK-led space weather instrumentation on a low-cost small-sat platform based on existing UK heritage, located in a sun-synchronous terminator LEO at some 500-600 km altitude above Earth. Such an orbit - achievable via, for example, either a low-cost Space-X rideshare or even a dedicated UK launch - would not only provide continuous real operational data (except during short eclipse periods at one solstice) but would also act as a test bed for space weather instruments as well as satellite/ground-segment sub-systems/technologies being developed in parallel in the UK. UK-ODESSI, which would target a launch time-scale and cost envelope similar to those of an ESA mini-F-class mission, would enable the development and testing of potential new space weather service capabilities by providing additional and novel inputs for nowcast and forecast models and climatology.
