But ultimately better protection against space weather depends on better science. Some of that will come from new satellites and new computer models. But some of it will come from insights resulting from much less costly research. At NASA Wallops we see sounding rockets being built and tested for flights up and through auroras.

"Behind the scenes" in Svalbard, Norway, during the "CUSP" sounding rocket campaign, December 2002

Image courtesy videographer, Bruce Scott, NSROC/NASA Wallops

On location in Svalbard, Norway, researchers brave polar bears, 24 hours of darkness and freezing temperatures to launch a sounding rocket into the mysterious "cusp" region of Earth's magnetosphere, where particles from the Sun find it easiest to make it down into the atmosphere.