MAG4 Research-to-Operations Timeline

Silver Snoopy

Employees must have significantly contributed to the human space flight program to ensure flight safety and mission success.

  • 2011  MAG4 installed at JSC Space Radiation Analysis Group (SRAG) as a NRT (Near-Real-Time) forecasting tool,  and SRAG began pre-operations testing

  • 2012  NOAA web access to MAG4 NRT forecasts was provided

  • 2013  MAG4 upgraded so that it can use a combination of free-energy proxy and previous flare activity, for better accuracy       

  • 2013  Won the Silver Snoopy Award

  • 2015  Transition from HMI line-of-sight magnetogram to vector magnetograms

  • 2016 MSFC Software of the Year Award, Honorable Mention for NASA’s.  

  • MAG4 Research-to-Operations Timeline

  • 1973  The MSFC (Marshall Space Flight Center) vector magnetograph was built to support Skylab   

  • 2000-present   MSFC MAG4 team uses vector magnetograms to study CME correlation with free-energy proxy    

  • 2007-12  A DOD/Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative/Neutral Atmosphere Density Interdisciplinary Research helped support funding of the basic research

  • 2008   Partnered with JSC/SRAG (Space Radiation Analysis Group) and won an R20 NASA/Technical Excellence Initiative grant: Began building a database that grew to ~40,000 magnetograms of ~1,300 active region, covering years 1996-2004 with event catalog from SOHO/MDI (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/Michelson Doppler Imager) observations

  • 2010-present   NASA’s HEOMD (Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate) support

  • 2010  SDO is launched began transitioning from MDI to HMI line-of-sight magnetograms.

  • 2011  MAG4 installed at SRAG a NRT (Near-Real-Time) forecasting tool,  and SRAG began pre-operations testing

  • 2012  Provided NOAA web access to MAG4 NRT forecasts

  • 2013   MAG4 upgraded so that it can use a combination of free-energy proxy and previous flare activity       

  • 2015  Transition to HMI line-of-sight to vector magnetograms

  • 2016-present Build up of flare and CME histories and improving MAG4 for accurate forecasting from HMI data continues