Author Archives: HM Government

Every day this week, Dstl will be posting a ‘Space Weather Forecast’ on social media to increase awareness of how weather in space can impact us on Earth.

The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC) continuously monitors space weather in order to assess the risk to us on Earth. The Space Weather forecasters from the MOSWOC, in conjunction with scientists at Dstl, research the impact of space weather such as solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), geomagnetic storms and changes in our ionosphere.

Space weather describes disturbances in Earth’s upper atmosphere and magnetic field which have a variety of impacts on mankind and our technology.

The major impacts of a severe space weather event can be divided into 2 areas: impacts on technology on Earth; and threats to equipment and health in space and at high altitude.

These could potentially include:

• Power grid outages
• Disruption to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) / Global Positioning Satellites (GPS)
• High Frequency (HF) radio communications outages
• Satellite damage
• Increased radiation levels at high altitude

Thankfully, severe space weather events are rare but when they do occur the impacts to our national infrastructure are extremely significant.

Space weather events have always occurred, but our modern reliance on technology driven systems makes us more susceptible to the impacts.

Different systems are exposed to varying levels of risk depending on technical design, location and the type of space weather that can affect them. The challenge for scientists is to ensure new systems are designed with appropriate engineering solutions to minimize the risk posed by space weather.

Dstl Space Weather specialists have stated that:

Monitoring space weather is fundamental to ensuring that our defence systems and national infrastructure remain secure. Part of the work we undertake is to collaborate with international scientists and the Met Office to ensure that we assess and learn from space weather and the impact it may have on the Earth.

This week at Dstl, we will be sending out weather reports supplied by the Met Office to raise awareness and also to encourage young people to get interested in this area of work.

Space Weather Programme Manager at the Met Office, Catherine Burnett, said:

The services we deliver today, together with our plans for future products and services, are underpinned by an in-house science team who work with many partners across government and academia, including colleagues at Dstl. This way we ensure the very best scientific understanding is used to help the UK prepare for and mitigate against the potential impacts of space weather.

Check out @dstlmod for twitter updates on Space Weather, with thanks to the Met Office for the information.

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The work forms part of a £250 million DIO programme, which is part of the major investment by the Ministry of Defence to ready the station for the arrival of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force’s new F-35 Lightning fast jet aircraft.

Construction of this kind on an active air field required a ‘no fly’ period to be agreed with the station. In the 3 weeks that flying was halted, DIO’s contractors, a joint venture between Galliford Try and Lagan Construction, had to complete the entire construction of this element of works. The resurfacing forms the third of 9 phases of work on the project, which will also provide hangars for 12 aircraft and an air crew feeding facility.

This phase included removing more than 13,000 tonnes of existing asphalt and installing 23 pits and 1.2km of ducting for aeronautical ground lighting. To resurface the runway, more than 18,000 tonnes of asphalt were laid over an area of nearly 38,000 square metres, equivalent to more than 5 rugby pitches. To achieve this within the required timescale the contractors worked in multiple shifts, 7 days a week.

Rob Dawson, DIO Lightning principal project manager, said:

This was a crucial part of the works being undertaken by DIO and was a vast amount to complete in such a short space of time. It couldn’t have been achieved without the cooperation of the teams from DIO, our contractors, the Galliford Try and Lagan Construction joint venture, our consultants AECOM and RAF Marham. It has been an integrated team effort and fills me with confidence for the hard work ahead of us.

Despite the short space of time available to design, plan and complete the work as well as some poor weather, it was completed a day early. This allowed flying operations to recommence on Friday 29 September.

Wing Commander Phil Marr, Officer Commanding Operations Wing, RAF Marham, said:

This was an immense task to complete in three weeks. With both runways out of action, any failure to deliver within the prescribed timeframe would have directly impacted flying operations at RAF Marham. This added significant pressure to an already taught construction task. In light of this, it was highly impressive to have been handed back such an immaculate new runway intersection, allowing the Station to recommence flying activities ahead of schedule. An excellent achievement all round.

Group Captain Ann Gibson, Lightning Basing Team Leader, RAF Marham said:

I am delighted that all of the teams have risen to the challenge to deliver the intersection in a 3 week period thereby minimising disruption to Tornado and RAF Marham operations.

Notes to editors

The F-35B Lightning II is the world’s most advanced, fifth generation aircraft that the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy will jointly operate from both land and sea. It will form an integral part of the UK’s carrier strike capability from both Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers.

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Suppliers attending the event will be able to hear presentations about the finding explosives hidden in electrical items themed competition which seeks to make a real difference in aviation security through innovative science and technology.

If you cannot attend the event, you can attend our webinar which will be announced shortly.

The competition is looking for proposals for technologies to improve our ability to prevent explosives hidden within electrical items in hand luggage from being taken on board an aircraft.

This Accelerator competition is part of the wider Department for Transport and Home Office Future Aviation Security Solutions (FASS) programme. This programme will invest £25.5 million over a 5 year period (2016-2021) to promote innovation and deliver a step change in aviation security.

As part of an effective, efficient and passenger-friendly screening system we’re seeking new solutions that could provide an alternative to imposing bans on electrical items or additional laborious screening measures.

Through this competition we want to continue to improve our detection capability, reduce the risk of restrictive measures being imposed in the future and reduce the need for additional layers of security.

The challenges of this Accelerator competition are to enhance the detection of threats hidden in electrical items at:

• Challenge 1: central search
• Challenge 2: at a final departure screening point, where there are significant constraints on size, weight, power and portability

For both challenges, we’re not just looking for solutions to detect concealed explosive devices/components. We’d also be interested in solutions to identify electrical items that may have been tampered with, or which appear to be out of the ordinary. This could allow us to focus the more resource intensive detection techniques on a smaller number of items.

Up to £3 million is available for this themed competition.

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