NOAA also supports the Department of Defense (DoD) mission by transferring Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) satellites that have completed their NOAA mission to the U.S. Space Force. Currently, the satellite that previously operated as GOES-15, renamed Electro-optical Infrared Weather System-Geostationary 2 (EWS-G2), operates over the Indian Ocean. In its new position, EWS-G2 provides critical weather data for planning and executing air, land, and maritime military operations across the region. 

Solar activity can also disrupt any technologies that rely on radio or microwave transmissions, including radio communications and radar signatures, including GPS functionality. GPS radio signals pass through the Earth’s upper atmosphere as they travel from the satellite to the receiver on the ground. When a space weather event disturbs that area, GPS receivers cannot properly determine position. Space weather also increases radiation in the upper atmosphere, which is especially hazardous to pilots and crew for polar flights. Finally, when disruptions do occur, space weather monitoring aids operators in satellite anomaly attribution, helping distinguish natural effects from other activity. 

Space weather disturbances influence our planet and nearby space environment enormously. In addition to affecting navigation and communications, space weather can shut down power grids. While extreme space weather events are far less common than extreme terrestrial weather events, they pose a substantial national security risk. Such an event would batter both civilian and military infrastructure. The Congressional Budget Office projects that damage from a severe solar storm would be astronomical; their 2020 analysis estimates costs in excess of a trillion dollars. The same report underlines the comparative scope of a major solar event, which would dwarf other worst-case scenarios such as a major conventional conflict with large-scale military operations or an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

Space weather heats Earth’s upper atmosphere and causes expansion, known as atmospheric drag, that can significantly slow satellites and requires more fuel to maintain their orbit. In more extreme cases, the increased drag can even be destructive. During a period of moderate solar activity in February 2022, 38 Starlink satellites de-orbited shortly after launch due to atmospheric drag. Losses like this are dangerous as the debris can cause cascading risks to other important satellites.

NOAA’s latest generation of GOES satellites carry an instrument that, while designed to map lightning, also detects bright meteors, known as bolides, when they enter Earth’s atmosphere. Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) data helps NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and DoD better understand and mitigate the threat posed by larger asteroids hitting Earth. GLM data helps improve impact prediction warnings by studying how asteroids fragment as they travel through the atmosphere. This information informs risk assessment models and strategies to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids away from Earth.