Advancing the Art of Solar Storm Forecasting: The Air Force Research Laboratory and the Air Force Weather Agency are trying to reduce the impact of violent solar storms on military assets by collaborating on efforts to better forecast the phenomena. The often-unpredictable plasma and radiation eruptions from the sun’s surface can wreak havoc on satellite-based communications. AFRL’s Solar Disturbance Prediction Program stationed at the National Solar Observatory’s complex in Sacramento Peak, N.M., started the “Solar Fusion” project. The effort aims to combine state of the art solar and space data from a large range of telescopes, satellites and computer modeling and make it accessible to the AFWA.
The U.S. and Sweden signed a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement on Dec. 5 that will strengthen military ties between them and likely lead to U.S. troops and prepositioned gear on Swedish soil. Swedish Defense minister Pal Jonson said the war in Ukraine prompted Sweden's joining NATO and he laid out…