Real-time Early Flare Alert System for the First Sounding Rocket Solar Flare Campaign
Abstract Understanding when and where a solar flare will occur continues to be an important goal for the heliophysics community, relevant to fundamental research, coordinated flare observations, and space weather applications. In 2024 April, the Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI-4) and High-resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C Flare) carried out NASA’s first coordinated sounding rocket solar flare campaign at the Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) in Fairbanks, Alaska, for the purpose of performing a triggered launch to observe a large (>C5 class) solar flare with flare-optimized instrumentation. For this campaign, we developed and successfully implemented a novel real-time early flare alert system that leverages low-latency solar imaging and irradiance measurements of the early stages of flares to establish when a large flare is imminent, predict the remaining duration, and identify the flare location in real time. By providing actionable flare nowcasts, this optimized collection of tools/visualizations informed real-time launch decisions and enabled the successful launch of the FOXSI-4 and Hi-C Flare experiments to observe a long-duration M-class flare. We detail the implementation of this early flare alert system, its operational validation during the launch, and the lessons learned to inform future flare monitoring systems and solar flare observing campaigns.
Authors
- Amy R. Winebarger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5608-531X)
- Noriyuki Narukage (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6330-3944)
- Sabrina Savage (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6172-0517)
- Paolo Massa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0993-1974)
- Yumi Bamba (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8385-8990)
- Phillip C. Chamberlin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4372-7405)
- A. G. Emslie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8720-0723)
- Robert W. Walsh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1025-9863)
- Yixian Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8941-2017)
- Marianne Peterson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9852-0869)
- K. Kusano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6814-6810)
- Vicki Herde (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9139-8939)
- Kristopher Cooper (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8589-3378)
- Katharine K. Reeves (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6903-6832)
- Genevieve D. Vigil (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7219-1526)
- P. S. Athiray (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4454-147X)
- Daniel F. Ryan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8661-3825)
- Lindsay Glesener (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7092-2703)
- Orlando Romeo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4559-2199)
- Ryan O. Milligan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5031-1892)
- A. R. Jones (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5533-5498)
- Rita J Borelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6170-7793)
- Juan Camilo Buitrago‐Casas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8203-4794)
- Athanasios Pantazides
- Juliana Vievering (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7407-6740)
- Yoshiaki Sato (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3735-944X)
- Jake Boils
- Ndifreke Okon Nyah
- Simon Shepard
Institutions
- Queen's University Belfast (GB)
- Marshall Space Flight Center (US)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- University of Lancashire (GB)
- Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (US)
- FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (CH)
- Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (US)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (US)
- BAE Systems (United Kingdom) (GB)
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (JP)
- Space Sciences Laboratory (US)
- Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research, Nagoya University (JP)
- University of Alabama in Huntsville (US)
- National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Published
- 2026-11-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae95fd
- Primary Topic
- Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00