SPACE WEATHER IMPACTS, FORECASTING & TRANSIT (SWIFT) LAB

Dr. Alicia K. Petersen heads the Space Weather Impacts and Forecasting Lab (SWIFT) at the University of Florida Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. 

Space weather events have damaging effects on spacecraft, communications, GPS, air transportation, and power systems. Space weather is caused by phenomena which originate at the Sun and propagate through the inner solar system before reaching Earth. SWIFT Lab at MAE researches the kinetic physics, magnetism, and dynamics at play during the transit and interaction of space weather phenomena in the inner solar system to improve space weather forecasting and develop methods for mitigating the impacts of space weather. SWIFT Lab does computational modeling of the Sun’s magnetic field and solar electrons in the inner solar system, designs/builds instrumentation for monitoring space weather and analyzes in situ space-based observations of solar particles to investigate the propagation and interactions of space weather events.