(Press-News.org) Royal Astronomical Society press release
RAS PR 25/27 (NAM 7)
8 July 2025
Embargoed until Wednesday 9 July 2025 at 00:01 BST
A new UK-led satellite mission concept aims to strengthen the country's position in space weather observation and forecasting by deploying a suite of homegrown scientific instruments on a low-cost spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.
The proposal is being presented today (Wednesday) at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting 2025 in Durham.
UK-ODESSI (UK-Orbital pathfinDEr for Space-borne, Space-weather Instrumentation) would act as a pathfinder for a new generation of UK-developed space weather instruments.
It would carry a baseline payload including a solar coronagraph (SCOPE), developed at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) RAL Space, and a high-energy particle instrument (HEPI), developed at the University of Surrey. Both are designed to fill current UK and European capability gaps in key areas of space weather monitoring.
SCOPE is the only solar coronagraph currently under development in Europe for space weather operations. Coronagraphs allow scientists to track coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the Sun and forecast their arrival at Earth, with lead times of no less than 15 hours.
Accurate CME arrival forecasts are a central component of space weather mitigation strategies. Currently, Europe relies on US-operated assets for this crucial observational capability. Amid growing uncertainty around the future of US scientific infrastructure, the development of sovereign UK and European coronagraph capability is increasingly important.
Dr Jackie Davies, science lead for UK-ODESSI at STFC RAL Space and SCOPE instrument lead, said: "Testing a coronagraph, with its challenging stray-light requirements, is difficult on the ground.
"A low-cost LEO platform is an ideal test-bed for performance verification, while also providing a level of resilience for current assets. With a validated coronagraph design, we would develop UK sovereign and European capability that could potentially be deployed on spacecraft in multiple locations."
HEPI is designed to measure highly energetic solar particles, specifically those with energies above 300 MeV.
Professor Keith Ryden, director of Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey and HEPI instrument lead, added: "These particles are hazardous because they are highly penetrating and can affect systems even on Earth's surface or on aircraft.
"In situ observations of such particles are extremely limited, with data currently available from only a few locations in geostationary orbit. A validated instrument like HEPI, deployed on multiple spacecraft, would significantly improve current models used for forecasting particle radiation events."
UK-ODESSI would use a small satellite platform developed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), placed in a sun-synchronous terminator orbit around 500–600 km above Earth. The orbit would allow near-continuous collection of operational data, with only short eclipse periods at one solstice.
The mission would also serve as a testbed for other satellite technologies developed in the UK, and could help pave the way for future deployments beyond low-Earth orbit.
At present, the development of the SCOPE and HEPI instruments is well underway, while the UK-ODESSI mission and spacecraft concept are still at a conceptual level. A design study is therefore being sought to move the mission forward, with a potential launch target within five years if funding is secured.
The project would aim to align with a cost and timeframe comparable to an ESA mini-F-class mission.
"Space weather is an acknowledged UK national risk," Dr Davies said. "The development and deployment of instruments for forecasting, nowcasting and model validation is a critical element in the successful mitigation of this critical national risk."
ENDS
Media contacts
Sam Tonkin
Royal Astronomical Society
Mob: +44 (0)7802 877 700
press@ras.ac.uk
Dr Robert Massey
Royal Astronomical Society
Mob: +44 (0)7802 877 699
press@ras.ac.uk
Megan Eaves
Royal Astronomical Society
press@ras.ac.uk
Anna Purdue
STFC RAL Space
Mob: +44 (0)7849 701 755
anna.purdue@stfc.ac.uk
Science contacts
Dr Jackie Davies
STFC RAL Space
jackie.davies@stfc.ac.uk
Images & captions
UK-ODESSI
Caption: An artist’s impression of what the UK-ODESSI space monitor could look like.
Credit: SSTL and STFC RAL Space
Further information
The talk ‘UK-ODESSI: A Low-Cost, Low-Earth Orbit, In-Orbit Pathfinder for UK Space Weather Instrumentation’ will take place at NAM at 17:15 BST on Wednesday 9 July 2025 in room TLC101. Find out more at: https://conference.astro.dur.ac.uk/event/7/contributions/457/
If you would like a Zoom link and password to watch it online, please email press@ras.ac.uk
The SCOPE (Solar Coronagraph for OPErations) instrument is under development at STFC RAL Space. In July 2024, the project received £770,000 in funding from the UK Space Agency’s National Space Innovation Programme to support design, testing and initial validation.
HEPI (High-Energy Particle Instrument) is being developed at the University of Surrey. Recent progress was presented at ESA/ESTEC in June 2025, including simulation results and breadboard hardware development.
UK-ODESSI would use a small satellite platform from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) in a sun-synchronous terminator orbit (~500–600 km altitude).
Notes for editors
The NAM 2025 conference is principally sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society and Durham University.
About the Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science.
The RAS organises scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognises outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 4,000 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.
The RAS accepts papers for its journals based on the principle of peer review, in which fellow experts on the editorial boards accept the paper as worth considering. The Society issues press releases based on a similar principle, but the organisations and scientists concerned have overall responsibility for their content.
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About the Science and Technology Facilities Council
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is the UK’s largest public funder of research into astronomy and astrophysics, particle and nuclear physics, and space science. We operate five national laboratories across the UK which, supported by a network of additional research facilities, increase our understanding of the world around us and develop innovative technologies in response to pressing scientific and societal issues. We also facilitate UK involvement in a number of international research activities including the ELT, CERN, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Square Kilometre Array Observatory.
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About Durham University
Durham University is a globally outstanding centre of teaching and research based in historic Durham City in the UK.
We are a collegiate university committed to inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham and in the world.
We conduct research that improves lives globally and we are ranked as a world top 100 university with an international reputation in research and education (QS World University Rankings 2026).
We are a member of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive UK universities and we are consistently ranked as a top five university in national league tables (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide and The Complete University Guide).
For more information about Durham University visit: www.durham.ac.uk/about/
END
UK hopes to bolster space weather forecasts with Europe's first solar storm monitor
2025-07-08
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