- 1National Observatory of Athens/IAASARS, Athens, Greece (omaland@astro.noa.gr)
- 2Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany
- 3Leidos Inc., USA
- 4NASA Johnson Space Center, USA
- 5KBR, USA
- 6NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA
- 7ADNET Systems, USA
- 8NASA M2M/Catholic University of America, USA
- 9INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Italy
- 10Observatoire de Paris, France
- 11University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA
Reliable forecasts with sufficient advance warning of Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events (with energies ranging from tens of keV to a few GeV and lasting for a few hours to several days), are vital for swift mitigation of threats to modern technology, spacecraft, avionics and under extreme circumstances commercial aircraft. Moreover, such forecasts are imperative for minimizing radiation hazards to astronauts especially on future Lunar or Mars missions. To this end, the HESPERIA Relativistic Electron Alert System for Exploration (REleASE) forecasting tools provide real-time predictions of the proton flux (30-50 MeV) at L1 based on relativistic and near-relativistic electron measurements by the SOHO/EPHIN and ACE/EPAM experiments using relevant proton forecasting matrices created from historical electron and proton data. Likewise, the recently developed STEREO REleASE forecasting scheme provides real-time predictions of proton flux (21-40 MeV) at the current location of STEREO-A, relying on electron measurements by the Solar Electron Proton Telescope (SEPT) and the High Energy Telescope (HET) onboard the spacecraft and relevant forecasting matrices that were derived from an analysis of 15-years of historical SEPT/HET electron and HET proton data. We, hereby, report on two novel implementations, namely HESPERIA REleASE+ and STEREO REleASE+, that combine for the first time real-time Type III solar radio burst observations by the STEREO S/WAVES instrument, as clear evidence of particle escape from the Sun, within the HESPERIA and STEREO REleASE systems respectively, aiming to substantially improve their accuracy and reduce false alarms. The identification of Type III radio bursts and their qualification as a precondition for intense SEP events occurring either at Earth or STEREO location is provided by a robust automated algorithm that recently resulted from an international collaboration between partners with complementary expertise on particles and radio data. These real-time and highly accurate forecasting schemes, which are currently operational and accessible through the Space Weather Operational Unit of the National Observatory of Athens (http://www.hesperia.astro.noa.gr), have attracted attention from various space organizations (e.g., NASA/CCMC, SRAG) and some of them are now integrated and provided through the ESA Space Weather (SWE) Service Network (https://swe.ssa.esa.int/noahesperia-federated) under the Space Radiation Expert Service Center (R-ESC).
How to cite: Malandraki, O., Tziotziou, K., Karavolos, M., Droege, H., Heber, B., Kuehl, P., Barzilla, J., Semones, E., Whitman, K., Mays, M. L., Didigu, C., J. Stubenrauch, C., Laurenza, M., Maksimovic, M., Krupar, V., and Milas, N.: Using Type III radio bursts as evidence of particle escape from the Sun for enhancing solar proton forecasting capabilities, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18393, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18393, 2025.