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.
A new White House policy calls for the Pentagon to craft plans for additional space launch facilities to support a projected increase in launch demand that could see the U.S. supporting as many as 1,000 launches by 2030, more than a fivefold increase from 2025.