Overview
- ESA ran an integrated drill at ESOC in Darmstadt that modeled an X45 flare, a high‑energy particle wave 10–20 minutes later, and a coronal mass ejection arriving roughly 10–18 hours afterward.
- The exercise revealed severe risks including GNSS and communications loss, single‑event upsets, star‑tracker blindness, and low‑Earth‑orbit drag spikes of up to 400% that degrade collision predictions.
- ESA’s Space Weather Office activated the Space Safety Center, engaging the Space Debris Office and other mission teams to practice cross‑mission decision‑making under rapidly shifting uncertainties.
- Operations leaders cautioned there are no good solutions in a storm of this scale, setting the goal to safeguard spacecraft and limit damage where possible.
- Insights now feed into Sentinel‑1D launch readiness for 4 November 2025 and guide the build‑out of Europe’s space‑weather monitoring through D3S and the Vigil observatory at L5.