• To understand solar variability and its effects on the space and Earth environments with an ultimate goal of a reliable predictive capability of solar variability;
• To obtain scientific knowledge relevant to mitigation or accommodation of undesirable effects of solar variability on humans and human technology on the ground and in space
• Five areas of investigations are covered: Environment definition in the presence of the spacecraft, Materials, Microelectronics, Detectors/Sensors,Spacecraft Charging/Discharging ..... more :

• Define space environment effects and mechanisms
• Reduce design margins
• Increase use of space environment "tolerant" technologies
• Increase the fraction of resources for payload
• Reduce launch vehicle requirements
• Enable routine operations above Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (above 2000 km) for LEO cost
• Improve design and operations guidelines
• Reduce unnecessary shutdowns
• Lower the risk of anomalies
• Reduce the number of operational failures

When margins for spacecraft design and operations are reduced, space environment "tolerant" and new technologies can be used more frequently, the fraction of spacecraft resources available for payloads can be increased or launch vehicle requirements can be reduced, routine operations above Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (above 2000 km) can be performed at the same cost as for the LEO operations.

• Define investigation topics through community workshops
  • NASA, industry, universities, other government agencies
• Technology users and technology providers


• Acquire investigations through NASA Research Announcements (NRAs) and partnerships
  • Flight investigations
    • Collect data in space to validate the performance of new technology vulnerable to the effects of the solar varying environments and instruments for LWS science missions
    • Collect data in space to validate new and existing ground test protocols or mechanism models for the effects of solar variability on emerging technologies and components
  • Data investigations
    • Improve, develop, and validate engineering environment models, tools, and databases for reliable spacecraft design and operation
      
• Transition results of investigations (products) to user community
  • Community workshops for investigators and users
  • Presentations at conferences
  • Data and product distribution and archive