NOAA Space Environment Center mission and the GOES space environment monitoring subsystem

The mission of the NOAA Space Environment Center (SEC) is to serve the nation's need to reduce adverse effects of solar- terrestrial disturbances on humankind's activities. To meet this need, SEC: 1) acquires, interprets, and disseminates space weather information; 2) prepares and disseminates forecasts and alerts of conditions of the space environment; 3) conducts research and development in solar-terrestrial physics and in techniques to improve monitoring and forecasting; 4) prepares high quality data for national archives; 5) uses its expertise to advise and educate those affected by variations in the space environment. Users are provided information in the form of forecasts, nowcasts, data, advice, support, expertise, and publications about conditions in the solar-terrestrial environment. The space environment monitors on GOES spacecraft provide space weather observations from the Sun to Earth and form the basis of the SEC real-time operation. The X-ray sensor (XRS) monitors solar flare activity and serves as the international standard for rating the intensity of flares. Flares are observed and classified according to the intensity of their emission on the XRS sensor. Forecasts of the occurrence of solar flares are expressed in terms of the measurements from the XRS. SEC also issues a daily index of the background solar radiation based on the XRS measurements. SOlar particle events (SPE) and energetic electron event s are detected using the energetic particle sensor (EPS) on GOES. Alerts and forecasts of the occurrence of SPE are made in terms of the fluxes of charged ions (mostly protons) measured by the EPS. Alerts are issued for energetic electron events based on the EPS measurements.