The First US Solar Storm Emergency Drill Did Not Go Well

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The federal government released the results of a multiday emergency drill intended to assess our ability to handle the next massive solar storm . Unfortunately, it sounds like there's a lot of room for improvement. According to a report published earlier this month by the Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) task force, institutions across the board need to better coordinate their interoffice responses, at the very least. Meanwhile, educating both themselves and the public on the complexities of cosmic forces that threaten societal infrastructures is a major must that remains unfulfilled.

In order to respond to these threats, government agencies need to coordinate. That is where SWORM comes in. Formed in 2014 to develop and advance national space weather preparedness, SWORM includes agencies like the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The hypothetical emergency occurred over eight days in early 2028 . In this situation, an active solar region begins to flare as it rotates towards a position aimed at Earth. Intensifying this simulated crisis is the variable that a two-astronaut Orion spacecraft crew is en route to the Moon, while another pair of Artemis astronauts are already situated on the lunar surface. 

The organizers then asked each participating agency group what protocols they had in place to handle such a priority problem. The results, while productive, laid bare just how difficult it still is for state and national agencies to coordinate on something as fundamentally complex as geomagnetic storms. This related both to the emergency responders themselves and the general public.

"Space weather is a complex subject and its potential impacts are not well understood outside of NOAA and NASA," reads the report , adding that participants, "without space weather expertise struggled to translate the scientific information and determine what the specific impacts would be on Earth."