Space Weather Investigation Frontier (SWIFT): Distinguishing between Local and Global Processes Driving Space Weather

Mesoscale heliospheric structures affecting the solar wind-magnetosphere coupling can be either injected by the Sun into the solar wind or generated locally in the near-Earth environment. These structures, ranging between tens to hundreds of Earth radii in scale, are observed in remote sensing observations of the solar corona, and in in-situ observations at Earth. However, resolving the formation, three-dimensional structure, and temporal evolution of these structures requires in-situ, multi-point observations, which existing (or planned) observatories do not provide. Here, we propose a groundbreaking mission concept, titled “Space Weather Investigation Frontier” (SWIFT), which utilizes flight-ready solar sail propulsion to enable continuous, in-situ observations along the Sun-Earth line at and inside the Lagrange point L1 (sub-L1). One sailcraft hub at sub-L1 and three identical nodes at L1 will fly in an optimized tetrahedron constellation to distinguish between local and global processes that drive space weather. To achieve this, SWIFT will investigate the spatial characteristics, temporal evolution, and geo-effectiveness of meso-scale solar wind structures as well as the substructures of macro-scale structures, such as interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) and stream interaction regions (SIRs). In addition, SWIFT will provide real-time measurements of Earth-bound heliospheric structures, thus improving our current space weather forecasting lead-times by up to 40% –aligned with both NASA and NOAA's space weather priorities. The presentation will further highlight the SWIFT team’s 1) demonstration of the near-Earth formation and evolution of meso-scale solar wind structures using state-of-the-art global simulations, as well as 2) sailcraft charging analyses confirming the cleanliness of the sail for reliable, in-situ fields and plasma measurements.