Overview
- At ESOC in Darmstadt, teams completed a high‑fidelity simulation built around an X45‑class flare that progressed from an eight‑minute electromagnetic blast to a particle wave and a coronal mass ejection 10–18 hours later.
- ESA’s Space Safety Center was activated alongside the Space Debris Office and multiple mission teams to practice coordinated responses under degraded data conditions.
- The scenario modeled immediate losses of GNSS and communications, frequent single‑event upsets in electronics, and star‑tracker outages during peak radiation.
- Low‑Earth‑orbit drag was projected to spike by up to roughly 400 percent with rapidly shifting conjunction probabilities that complicate collision‑avoidance decisions.
- Ground effects in the model included auroras at unusually low latitudes and damaging currents in long infrastructures, while outcomes will inform procedures before the 4 November launch and bolster plans for D3S sensors and the Vigil L5 mission targeted for 2031.