Nice to meet everyone! A co-founder of a new space weather startup is looking for cooperation ideas

[Ksenia Moskalenko]

Dear space weather enthusiasts! - Nice to meet everyone, I just came across this forum and am thrilled to join the community!

I am a co-founder of a European (for now, we are also looking to expand into other regions) startup called Mission Space, where we are developing a global predictive space weather system designed to serve as a decision support tool for customers from energy, maritime, aviation, supply chain, and oil & gas industries, helping them to predict space weather events and develop proper mitigation strategies supporting uninterrupted service. We have our nanosatellites and payload, but are new to the space weather community.

Unfortunately, not a lot of governments/companies see space weather events as a priority natural hazard and we are looking for ways to spread the awareness and expand our network. Since you guys here are the experts, I am asking for your advice on whom to contact or reach out to (potential space weather data customers, insurance companies, research organizations, universities, or just experts in the field in general) for potential interest and ideas on how to bring this work on a broader scale.

This is our website: https://www.mission.space/ (or my linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ksenia-moskalenko/)

And just in case, my email address: [email protected]

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, suggestions or just any questions, hoping for your help and support!!!

Thanks everyone in advance!

[Vancanneyt Sander]

The SWPC and the European alternative already do what you are doing and makes all data public for all organisations. So you have to stand out above that with some things that can set you above the official organisations. We at SpaceWeatherLive already raise awareness for all space weather related events, also free of charge.

What instruments are on board of the nanosatellites (the site only tells it has “sensors”)? Since these satellites are not at the L1 point but are in orbit around the Earth, how can you even monitor what’s happening on the Sun anyway? Or even measure IMF ?

If you want to attract or get interest of organisations/companies/... you’ll have to be a lot more specific in the data that’s being serviced. The lack of information about what’s provided keeps interests away.

sorry if I’m a bit sceptic, especially if you mention that you are new in the spaceweather community it raises questions 

[helios]

Hi and welcome.

It looks like you are looking for a business opportunity rather than scientific information.

Which services could you offer, that for example the NOAA space weather prediction center can't?
The volume of paying customers in this field is very limited. The services that depend on space weather data will already have their source which have decades of experience in space weather prediction.
 

A swarm of nanosats in a heliocentric orbit could potentially improve the prediction accuracy and understanding of space weather, but will be very expensive to launch and maintain (large aperture ground stations required).

Nanosats in low earth orbit probably wouldn't add much value regarding prediction of events.

 

[Christopher S.]

GOES, SOHO, SDO. They do the job and provide real-time space weather monitoring, freely and internationally. No transactions required. SWPC has these things covered, and it would take an extraordinary and proprietary solution to do better. You better have Elon Musk as an investor, or this idea will just fall flat on its face.

[Jim Sinclair]

Hi Ksenia,

If you are looking for a commercial niche to exploit have a look at agricultural industries; it is an undeveloped field.

In the South Australian cereal growing region THE fact of the weather that is vital is what is called, "The date of the opening rain". The opening rain is when a significant rain occurs and is followed up about two weeks later by another rainfall which will keep the crops going. About 60 years ago there was a researcher at the Waite Institute who was able to make a very significant correlation between the sunspot cycle and the date of the opening rain in South Australia. As far as I know his research has not been developed any further.

I have worked as a radio technician/technical officer (retired now); I spent 6 1/2 years based in Alice Springs in charge of a radio-telephone network carried by circuits in the low frequency end of the HF band. When I first went there the locals told me repeatedly that their telephones were affected by weather conditions. They also had experience with the Flying Doctor network which also uses channels in the low end of the HF band. The conventional wisdom in the radio field is that there should be no correlation between weather, happening in the bottom few kilometers of the atmosphere and reflection of HF signals which happens several hundred kilometers up. When I kept hearing those statements I took a wad of propagation disturbance warning telex messages which we had got from the Ionospheric Prediction Service out to the met office at the Alice Springs Airport and compared them with their rainfall records. With 4 months of records to compare I got a correlation that could only happen by chance once in 130 years.

In rainfall limited parts of the World an accurate prediction of seasonal conditions is immensely valuable. The general academic world thinks that the only effect of the sun on weather is a slight variation of radiation flux at peaks of the sunspot cycle; they are missing the much larger effect of variations of the solar wind and particularly coronal mass ejections on cloud formation.

If you were able to develop a form of forecasting that would give an indication of the likely rainfall for a year ahead there are people who would pay big money for that information.

Best wishes,

Jim.