At ESA's European Space Flight Center (ESOC) a unique simulation took place in Darmstadt, which recreated the effects of an extreme solar storm. This script, modeled after Carrington's historical event 1859 year, became part of the training campaign before the launch of the Sentinel-1D satellite and aimed to check the readiness of the teams to work in conditions of complete failure of navigation, communication and partial failure of electronics.
Before each launch of ESA missions, experts go through a phase of intensive training, which recreate the first hours of the satellite's life in orbit. This time, the instructors decided to test the team's ability to act during the event, similar to the most powerful geomagnetic storm in history. Participants had to ensure the safety of the device, maintain control of the mission and minimize the risks in the situation, when conventional navigation and communication systems are completely disabled.
The simulation involved several stages of the development of the event. First, a powerful X45 class solar flare was simulated to hit Earth, which caused the radars to malfunction, communication systems and navigation data Galileo and GPS. A few minutes later, a second wave — a stream of high-energy particles — was added to the scenario, which caused errors in the operation of on-board electronics and simulated potential damage to satellite systems.
After a few hours, the simulation entered the most difficult phase — the impact of a coronal mass ejection with a speed of up to 2000 km/s. According to the script, the plasma flow was causing a large-scale geomagnetic storm, which caused failures in power networks, overvoltages in metal structures and abnormal auroral phenomena. At the same time, the Earth's atmosphere was expanding in space, increasing aerodynamic drag and changing satellite orbits, which made it difficult to predict their movement and increased the risk of collisions with space debris.
Such conditions also simulated massive electronics failures, degradation of GNSS signals and malfunction of star trackers. High levels of radiation threatened the materials of the devices and could shorten their service life. According to ESA experts, a Carrington-scale event would cause a fourfold increase in the atmospheric drag of low-orbit satellites, and the accuracy of collision prediction would significantly decrease due to rapid changes in trajectory parameters.
Not only Sentinel-1D operators took part in the simulation, as well as experts from the ESA Space Weather Office, Space Security Center and Space Debris Office. This format made it possible to work out the coordination between different missions and assess the mutual consequences of the solar storm for the entire group of European satellites.
Based on the results of the training, experts noted the importance of increasing preparedness for similar phenomena and improving space weather forecasting systems. ESA is already working on the creation of a Distributed Space Weather Sensor System (D3S) — networks of satellites and payloads for monitoring parameters of solar activity around the Earth. This data should provide timely warning and increase the security of the infrastructure.
in addition, the upcoming Vigil mission, the launch of which is planned for 2031 year, will observe the Sun from the Lagrangian point L5. Such an arrangement will allow to record potentially dangerous events even before that, how they will become visible from Earth, which will allow you to win additional time to protect satellites and ground systems.
The results of the simulation became a key step in the formation of the European response strategy to extreme space weather events. ESA experts emphasized, that such scenarios are not a matter of possibility—only of time, when they become reality.
Source: https://phys.org