The European Space Agency (ESA) has chosen Airbus to design and construct the space weather forecasting satellite Vigil, which will be the first mission in the agency’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Space Safety Programme (S2P). The spacecraft will provide Earth with crucial additional warnings about impending solar storms and coronal mass ejections, which have the ability to interfere with orbiting satellites as well as the planet’s electrical and power distribution networks.
“Vigil is one of the most exciting and important space missions that will not only improve our understanding of the Sun’s behaviour but crucially provide us with greater precision and earlier warning about potentially damaging solar weather,” stated Patrick Wood, Head of Space Systems UK, Airbus Defence and Space. Forecasters of space weather will be able to observe what is coming from the Sun and provide more accurate alerts.”
“Space weather generates stunning phenomena like the recent displays of the Northern lights over our skies – but it also presents a real risk to our way of life which is increasingly dependent on space and satellite services,” stated Andrew Griffith MP, Minister for Space at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Our comprehension of the effects of potentially hazardous solar events will be revolutionized by the Vigil mission, and I applaud Airbus in the UK for spearheading this crucial endeavour.
According to Josef Aschbacher, Director General of ESA, “Vigil will be Europe’s first space weather satellite that operates around-the-clock, providing valuable time to protect critical infrastructure such as power grids or mobile communication networks on Earth as well as valuable satellites in Earth orbit, including the International Space Station ISS.” “Vigil, with its unique vantage point in deep space, will dramatically improve the level of detail and lead time of space weather warnings.”
The Earth orbiting the Sun 150 million kilometres behind it, Vigil will be situated near Lagrange point L5. Vigil will be able to see the Sun’s rotation as well as the amount and velocity of solar weather that is approaching Earth thanks to this. Information from Vigil could provide notice of four to five days of solar winds streaming toward Earth.
The UK-based Vigil will be equipped with a photo-magnetospheric field imager from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, a heliographic imager from Leonardo SpA in Florence, and a compact coronagraph created by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Vigil will also be carrying a magnetometer from Imperial College London and a plasma analyzer from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in London. Vigil’s sixth instrument, an extreme ultraviolet imager, is being provided by NASA.
The satellite platform will offer optimal conditions for superior scientific measurements, including strict control over contamination and magnetic purity. Since the satellite is an operational mission, its design must be very robust to guarantee the constant, faultless performance of its instruments and great reliability in data transmission for users, particularly in the solar event.
The power companies and authorities will be able to temporarily shut down systems in order to safeguard them from power surges and make sure they can quickly be powered up after the danger has passed if they are alerted in advance of an impending CME. By doing this, extended power outages and significant harm to the electronic equipment required for communication and global positioning services will be prevented.
The UK Space Agency and other ESA member states support Vigil, which was chosen by the organization in 2022. In order to provide the globe with more precise forecasts, the UK Met Office’s specialist space weather forecasting branch will make use of the data from Vigil.
