Louisville, CO, July 13, 2022—The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine selected Dr. Geoff Crowley, CEO and Founder of Louisville-based Orion Space Solutions, to co-chair its recently created Government-University-Commercial Space Weather Roundtable. Created to expand public understanding of space weather’s social and economic impact, the roundtable realizes a recommendation of the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act, which became law in October 2020.

Roundtable members will facilitate exchange of information and understanding among government participants in the Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) Interagency Working Group, the academic community, and the commercial space weather sector to support space weather-related decisions.

The roundtable includes 17 space weather experts and stakeholders selected from government, industry, and academia. The group will focus on issues including developing resilience to severe space weather events, communication of risk from space weather events, and identifying steps to improve research to operations and operations to research pathways.

“Space weather forecasting is in infancy as compared to weather forecasting – leveraging PROSWIFT direction, the U.S. Government hopes to expand public awareness of potentially disastrous effects of severe space weather on ground-based and space-based assets,” explains Crowley. “The group includes scientists, engineers and policy experts, and environmental (Earth, space, and Sun) professionals who will help identify pathways to improve the nation’s space weather understanding and actionable responses to extreme events.”

In convening senior-level decision makers, scientists, and industry experts, the Space Weather Roundtable will facilitate advances in the scientific knowledge of space weather phenomena, forecasting of space weather events, and impacts of space weather on Earth.

“Since inception in 2005, Orion Space Solutions has taken a similar approach, turning scientific understanding of space into actionable information that supports our customers and the public good,” Crowley says.