Mission concept for SURROUND: Operational space weather detection and tracking using small spacecraft

One of the greatest challenges facing current space weather monitoring operations is forecasting the arrival of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar energetic particles (SEPs). This paper presents a mission concept for operational detection and monitoring of solar weather events as a means of forecasting the arrival of potentially hazardous CMEs and SEPs at Earth-like distances. Foregrounding the operational (rather than scientific) requirements of the system, this work proposes a high-level mission design that could provide detection of solar weather events by tracking associated solar radio bursts, enabling advanced warning of their arrival at Earth. This work concludes that 3–5 small spacecraft equipped with radio spectrometers positioned at the Sun–Earth Lagrange points and in Earth-leading/-trailing orbits could be used to provide this capability, with the<i> L</i>₄ and<i> L</i>₅Lagrange points most advantageous for mission performance. While technical developments in CubeSat survivability would be required to enable the SURROUND mission, suitable launch, injection and communication options are identified, indicating its potential feasibility in the near future.