Space Weather Policy

Space weather — solar flares, coronal mass ejections, geomagnetic storms, and solar radiation — poses significant threats to electrical grids, satellite communications, GPS navigation, aviation, and other critical infrastructure. The PROSWIFT Act (Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow) established a comprehensive federal framework for space weather research, observation, forecasting, and preparedness.

Current Law (2026)

Key Numbers

• 1989 Quebec geomagnetic storm: the benchmark for modern space weather planning — a G5-class (the most severe) storm knocked out power for 6 million people across the province for up to 9 hours; damaged transformers took months to repair; estimated economic damage equivalent to $13 million in 1989 dollars, far more in today's grid replacement costs
• Carrington Event (1859): the largest recorded solar storm; a 2013 Lloyd's of London study estimated a Carrington-class event today would cause $0.6 trillion to $2.6 trillion in economic damage in the United States alone, primarily from damaged high-voltage transformers that take 12-18 months to manufacture and replace; the U.S. has approximately 2,000 large transformers that are vulnerable
• Warning window from L1: the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite at the L1 Lagrange point — 1 million miles from Earth — gives utility operators approximately 15 to 60 minutes of advance warning before a coronal mass ejection (CME) hits Earth's magnetosphere; enough time to take protective grid actions but not enough to plan logistics or prepare physical infrastructure
• May 2024 G5 storm: the strongest geomagnetic storm since the 2003 Halloween storms (21 years); visible auroras as far south as Florida, Texas, and Mexico; disrupted HF radio communications and reduced GPS positioning accuracy by several meters; affected some precision agriculture operations mid-planting season; NOAA's forecasting systems issued warnings approximately 30 hours in advance — the longest reliable lead time in the agency's history, demonstrating forecast improvements since the 1989 Quebec event
• 13,000+ commercial satellites currently in orbit; severe solar radiation events can accelerate atmospheric drag at low orbits (causing satellites to decay faster), damage solar panels, and corrupt onboard electronics — SpaceX Starlink lost 38 satellites to geomagnetic effects in February 2022 following a minor G1 storm during their deployment phase
• GPS accuracy degradation: during a major geomagnetic storm, ionospheric disturbances introduce timing errors that translate to 1-10 meters of positioning error for standard GPS receivers — enough to disrupt precision agriculture (where field operations depend on sub-foot accuracy), port logistics (automated crane positioning), and autonomous vehicle systems
• Solar Cycle 25 — began December 2019; peak activity now expected 2025-2026, and significantly more active than NOAA and NASA's initial predictions; the revised forecast means the risk of major geomagnetic events is elevated through at least mid-2026

Legal Authority

• 51 U.S.C. § 60601 — Space weather (congressional findings that space weather threatens critical infrastructure; establishes interagency working group and advisory group under OSTP)
• 51 U.S.C. § 60602 — Integrated strategy (OSTP Director must develop a coordinated national strategy for space weather research, observation, forecasting, and mitigation)
• 51 U.S.C. § 60603 — Sustaining critical observations (U.S. policy to establish and sustain baseline space weather observations and make data publicly available; obtain enhanced observations from commercial, international, and other sources)
• 51 U.S.C. § 60604 — Research activities (NSF, NASA, and DOD shall continue basic space weather research, including fundamental physics of the Sun-Earth system)
• 51 U.S.C. § 60605 — Space weather data (NASA and NSF shall make space weather research data publicly available in accessible formats)
• 51 U.S.C. § 60606 — Knowledge transfer (NOAA, in collaboration with NASA, DOD, NSF, and others, shall facilitate transfer of space weather knowledge from research to operational forecasting)
• 51 U.S.C. § 60607 — Commercial data pilot program (NOAA may establish a pilot program to procure space weather data from commercial providers)
• 51 U.S.C. § 60608 — Space weather benchmarks (the interagency working group shall periodically review and update benchmarks for extreme space weather events)

How It Works

Space weather is the space equivalent of terrestrial weather, but instead of rain and wind, the threats are streams of charged particles, magnetic field disturbances, and radiation bursts originating from the Sun. A severe geomagnetic storm can knock out power grids (as happened in Quebec in 1989), disable satellites, disrupt GPS signals, reroute aviation, and degrade radio communications. The potential economic damage from a Carrington-class event (the most severe recorded solar storm, in 1859) is estimated in the trillions of dollars.

The federal space weather framework distributes responsibilities across multiple agencies. NOAA operates the Space Weather Prediction Center, providing real-time forecasts and warnings to utilities, airlines, satellite operators, and the military. NASA and NSF conduct the fundamental research — studying the Sun, solar wind, and magnetosphere to improve understanding and prediction of space weather events. DOD has its own space weather capabilities for military operations. The OSTP coordinates across agencies through an interagency working group.

The integrated strategy requirement ensures these agencies aren't working in isolation. OSTP must develop a national strategy that covers the entire pipeline: observation of the Sun and space environment, research to understand the physics, transition of research findings into operational forecasting, and preparedness planning for extreme events.

A critical policy commitment is sustaining baseline observations. Space weather forecasting depends on continuous monitoring by spacecraft positioned between the Earth and Sun (at the L1 Lagrange point), by solar observatories, and by ground-based magnetometers and ionospheric sensors. The law establishes that maintaining this observation capability — and making the data publicly available — is a matter of U.S. policy.

The commercial data pilot reflects the growing commercial space weather sector. Private companies are deploying sensors and developing forecast products. NOAA can now procure data from these providers, similar to how the National Weather Service purchases commercial weather data.

Benchmarking extreme events is essential for infrastructure planning. The interagency working group must periodically review benchmarks for the most severe plausible space weather events, so that utilities, satellite operators, and other critical infrastructure operators can design systems to withstand them.

How It Affects You

If you live in a northern-tier state or rural area served by long transmission lines: The most catastrophic space weather risk is prolonged grid failure — not a few-hour outage but weeks or months of blackout caused by destroyed high-voltage transformers. Your vulnerability is highest if you live in a region served by long transmission lines at high latitudes (the northern U.S., Canada), because geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) are strongest where the magnetic field is closest to vertical. The transformer damage scenario is the scenario that keeps grid engineers up at night: a Carrington-class event could destroy hundreds of large transformers simultaneously, and replacements take 12-18 months to manufacture. FERC reliability standard TPL-007, developed after PROSWIFT, requires transmission operators to assess their GIC vulnerability and implement operational procedures (reactive power management, transformer neutral blocking) to reduce it. If you want to understand your specific utility's preparedness, ask for their FERC TPL-007 compliance plan — it's a public regulatory filing.

If you're a farmer relying on precision GPS for planting, fertilizing, or autonomous machinery: The May 2024 G5 storm disrupted precision agriculture during peak spring planting season. GPS receivers that normally deliver sub-inch accuracy degraded to 1-10 meter accuracy during the storm's ionospheric disruption — enough to throw off planting row spacing, variable-rate fertilizer application maps, and the path accuracy of autonomous tractors. This is not a hypothetical: precision agriculture now represents $5+ billion/year in equipment and subscriptions in the U.S., and all of it depends on GPS accuracy that space weather can degrade or destroy in hours. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issues geomagnetic storm watches and warnings that can be set up as automated alerts through commercial agricultural software platforms; during the elevated Solar Cycle 25 period (2025-2026), monitoring these alerts during planting and harvest seasons is worthwhile.

If you're a commercial airline dispatcher or flight operations manager: Airlines routinely reroute polar flights during space weather events to avoid HF radio blackouts (which are required for transoceanic communications) and to reduce radiation exposure for crew and passengers. A typical polar reroute from New York to Tokyo or London to Los Angeles adds 1-3 hours of flight time and $40,000-$100,000 in extra fuel costs per flight. During the May 2024 G5 storm, major carriers diverted dozens of polar routes in a single day. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center provides aviation-specific space weather advisories through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) global system; flight dispatchers at major carriers receive these advisories through airline operations centers and are trained to assess reroute thresholds. The PROSWIFT Act specifically requires NOAA to improve aviation-sector communication — the 15-60 minute L1 warning window matters most here, because routing decisions need to be made before the storm impacts begin.

If your business depends on commercial satellite communications or precise timing signals: The 38 Starlink satellites lost in February 2022 — destroyed by elevated atmospheric drag during a mild G1 storm shortly after deployment — cost SpaceX an estimated $100 million. For satellite operators, space weather risk affects insurance premiums, orbital slot planning, and satellite design specifications (radiation-hardened components cost significantly more than standard electronics). For businesses that depend on satellite-based timing signals for financial transactions, cellular network synchronization, or power grid management, even temporary GPS/GNSS signal degradation during a storm can cause cascading failures. The financial sector's reliance on satellite timing is underappreciated: most financial exchanges use GPS timing to timestamp trades to microsecond precision; during the 2016 GPS timing anomaly (a different issue, but instructive), some financial systems failed to reconcile trades. Space weather preparedness for timing-dependent systems means maintaining ground-based backup timing sources and building tolerance for GPS signal degradation into system design.

State Variations

Space weather policy is exclusively federal. State-level involvement is primarily through emergency preparedness:

• State utility commissions may require utilities to have space weather preparedness plans
• State emergency management agencies incorporate space weather scenarios into disaster planning
• Grid reliability standards (set by NERC, overseen by FERC) include geomagnetic disturbance requirements that affect utilities nationwide — see CISA for the broader critical infrastructure protection framework

Implementing Regulations

Space weather policy is implemented through NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center and interagency coordination under the National Space Weather Strategy. 15 CFR Part 946 addresses NWS modernization. No dedicated CFR part exists for space weather specifically.

Pending Legislation

No standalone space weather bills pending in the 119th Congress.

Recent Developments

The May 2024 G5 geomagnetic storm was the most significant real-world test of PROSWIFT's forecasting framework since the Act passed in 2020. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch approximately 30 hours in advance — the longest reliable lead time in the agency's history — giving utilities, airlines, and satellite operators time to take protective actions. The storm produced visible auroras as far south as Florida and Texas, disrupted HF aviation communications on polar routes, degraded GPS accuracy across North America for approximately 12 hours, and caused some precision agricultural operations to suspend field work mid-day. The outcome was significantly better than the 1989 Quebec event despite similar storm intensity, partly because more protective actions are now standard (utilities have geomagnetic disturbance procedures under FERC TPL-007, airlines have space weather diversion protocols), and partly because NOAA's forecast gave more lead time. It was also an object lesson in how much more severe a Carrington-class event — roughly 10 times stronger — would be.

Solar Cycle 25 has been running significantly more active than NOAA and NASA's initial predictions. The forecast issued at cycle start in 2019 projected a modest, below-average cycle; by 2024, the data showed Cycle 25 tracking as one of the more active cycles on record, with the revised peak expected in 2025-2026. This means the period of elevated risk extends further into the future than originally modeled, and NOAA has revised its probabilistic outlook for major geomagnetic events accordingly. The commercial space weather data pilot authorized under 51 U.S.C. § 60607 has expanded to include several commercial providers — including Spire Global, Planet Labs, and others — whose satellite constellations provide complementary observation data to the government's Deep Space Climate Observatory. NOAA is evaluating these data streams for potential integration into operational forecast models, following the same public-private model that has improved terrestrial weather forecasting.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center faced staffing pressures in 2025 as part of broader NOAA workforce reduction discussions. The SWPC operates 24/7, 365 days/year — it's one of two global centers (along with the U.K. Met Office) that provides around-the-clock space weather monitoring — and requires a minimum crew of trained forecasters to maintain continuous operations. Any reduction in SWPC staffing raises operational continuity concerns that are different from most government staffing questions: the forecaster on duty at 3 a.m. when a CME arrives is the one who issues the utility warnings. The interagency working group established under PROSWIFT — which includes NOAA, NASA, NSF, DOD, and OSTP — continued to coordinate on the National Space Weather Strategy update, with the 2024 revision to the Space Weather Action Plan incorporating lessons from the May 2024 G5 event and the accelerated Solar Cycle 25 activity.