Project description:

AFFECTS was an EU-funded collaborative space weather project with a focus on forecasting the state of the ionosphere over Europe and addressing the needs of European GNSS users.

The project aims to improve knowledge of the impact of solar activity on the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system. In its framework we achieved an unprecedented quantitative understanding of the impacts of space weather effects on the Earth's ionosphere and provided reliable forecasts of ionospheric conditions on the required time scales, which can be accessed by users for their relevant applications. As a result of the project the following forecast products were generated:

• geomagnetic indices Dst (4 hours) and Kp (3 hours);
• realtime auroral electrojet position;
• TEC over Europe (24 hours);
• automatic warnings for GNSS users;
• automatic general-purpose warnings.

The links to these products can be found in the project website http://www.affects-fp7.eu/

Project timeline: March 2011 – February 2014

Project partners:

1. University of Göttingen Institute for Astrophysics, Germany (UGOE) – Project Coordinator
2. Royal Observatory of Belgium, Belgium (ROB)
3. Space Research Institute of NAS of Ukraine and SSA of Ukraine, Ukraine (SRI NASU-NSAU)
4. Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques, Germany (FhG)
5. University of Tromsø Geophysical Observatory, Norway (UoT)
6. German Aerospace Center, Neustrelitz Office, Germany (DLR)
7. EADS Astrium ST, Friedrichshafen Office, Germany (ASTRIUM)
8. NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, USA (NOAA-SWPC – External Collaborator
9. Planetarium Hamburg, Germany (PH) – Education and Public Outreach Centre

Project website: http://www.affects-fp7.eu/

SRI role in the project:

SRI is responsible for the provision of a geomagnetic forecast tool, which should be used operationally both as a part of the Forecast System Ionosphere developed by DLR and on its own as a standalone service.

The geomagnetic forecast service developed by SRI is available to users via the following links:

AFFECTS@SWACI: http://swaciwebdevelop.dlr.de/geomagnetic-indices/dst-index/?L=1 (Dst forecast available in graphical form only):

STAFF: http://www.staff.oma.be/

STAFF instructions: go to Geomagnetic under Dataset selection, then select Ap (Potsdam), Dst, or Kp (Potsdam). Quicklook is the latest value of the index, prediction1 for ap and Kp is the 3-hours forecast, predictionX for Dst is the X-hours forecast. For more information refer to STAFF documentation.

SRI also developed the AFFECTS Space Weather Mobile App for Android OS, which provides a realtime access to all the services developed in the project. It can be downloaded by visiting the link https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.afects.forecasts or by scanning the QR-code below

SRI AFFECTS team (in alphabetic order):

	Prof. Oleg Cheremnykh Expertise: space plasma physics, magnetospheric physics Responsibility in the project: physics-based modelling of the geomagnetic activity and interpretation of results
	Dr. Igor Kremenetsky Expertise: ionospheric physics, numerical modelling Responsibility in the project: application of the guaranteed prediction approach to geomagnetic forecast (year 1 only)
	Prof. Vsevolod Kuntsevich Expertise: information and control theory, identification of systems Responsibility in the project: development of the guaranteed estimation approach, development of advanced system identification techniques (year 1 only)
	Mr. Andrii Kuzmych Expertise: data processing, software development Responsibility in the project: development of the Android frontend and the general architecture of the AFFECTS mobile app (year 3 only)
	Dr. Aleksei Parnowski Expertise: magnetospheric physics Responsibility in the project: development and application of the regression modelling approach to geomagnetic forecast, administrative issues (Point of Contact for the team)
	Ms. Olena Piankova Expertise: software engineering Responsibility in the project: development of the server-side components and the interfaces of the AFFECTS mobile app (year 3 only)
	Ms. Anna Polonska Expertise: applied physics, software testing Responsibility in the project: training of the models for the geomagnetic forecast, testing of the software products
	Dr. Nikolai Salnikov Expertise: information and control theory, numerical modelling Responsibility in the project: development and application of the guaranteed prediction approach to geomagnetic forecast, investigation of the stability of developed algorithms (year 1 only)
	Dr. Oleh Semeniv Expertise: information and control theory Responsibility in the project: software implementation of the geomagnetic forecast service, fractal analysis of ACE data
	Prof. Vitaliy Yatsenko Expertise: information and control theory, optimization of systems Responsibility in the project: development and application of the dynamic-information approach to geomagnetic forecast, application of risk analysis methods (years 1 and 2 only)