DBSE

Space Weather

What the Sun is doing to satellites, navigation and radio, updated every three hours

Geomagnetic Activity
Kp 2.7
Quiet (G0)
Next 3 Days
Max Kp 4.7
NOAA forecast: Minor storm (G1)
Solar Wind
665 km/s
Bz 0.8 nT (southward drives storms)
Solar X-rays
B9.2
24h peak C8.0
Solar Flux F10.7
128 sfu
Higher flux heats the upper atmosphere and raises drag

What This Means Right Now

LEO operators

Normal atmospheric drag.

GEO and MEO operators

No unusual charging risk.

GNSS users (GPS, Galileo, NavIC, BeiDou)

Normal positioning accuracy.

HF radio and satcom

Normal propagation.

NOAA scales now: radio blackouts R0, solar radiation storms S0, geomagnetic storms G0. Last reading .

Kp Forecast, Next 3 Days

Kp 5 or more is a geomagnetic storm (G1). Each bar is a 3-hour period, UTC.

Last 30 Days

Storm Days per Year

Days whose highest 3-hour Kp reached storm level. Storms cluster near solar maximum.

Solar Cycle (monthly F10.7 and sunspots)

The roughly 11-year cycle drives drag in low orbit: satellites decay faster near solar maximum.

Storms That Cost Operators

  • Gannon storm (G5) · 2024-05-10

    The strongest storm in two decades. GPS-guided tractors across the US Midwest lost accuracy in the middle of planting season. Source

  • Starlink launch lost to a minor storm · 2022-02-04

    SpaceX said up to 40 of 49 newly launched Starlink satellites would re-enter after a modest storm raised drag at their low deployment altitude. Source

  • Halloween storms (G5) · 2003-10-29

    Japan's ADEOS-II Earth observation satellite was lost and many spacecraft reported anomalies or went into safe mode. Source

Latest NOAA Alerts

  • EXTENDED WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 4 expected
  • Space Weather Message Code: ALTEF3 Serial Number: 3770 Issue Time: 2026 Nov 09 1001 UTC CONTINUED ALERT: Electron 2MeV Integral Flux ex
  • WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 4 expected
  • ALERT: Electron 2MeV Integral Flux exceeded 1,000pfu
  • ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 5
  • ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 5

Sources: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (swpc.noaa.gov, public domain), refreshed every 3 hours; daily Kp, sunspot and F10.7 history from GFZ Potsdam (kp.gfz.de, CC BY 4.0), with NASA OMNI2 and NOAA daily indices filling in when GFZ is unavailable. See also people in space.