Swarm is the first European Space Agency (ESA) constellation mission for Earth Observation. Three identical Swarm satellites were launched into near-polar orbits on 22 November 2013. Each satellite hosts a range of instruments, including a Langmuir probe, GPS receivers, and magnetometers, from which the ionospheric plasma can be sampled and current systems inferred. In March 2018, the CASSIOPE/e-POP mission was formally integrated into the Swarm mission through ESA’s Earthnet Third Party Mission Programme. Collectively the instruments on the Swarm satellites enable detailed studies of ionospheric plasma, together with the variability of this plasma in space and in time. This allows the driving processes to be determined and understood. The purpose of this paper is to review ionospheric results from the first seven years of the Swarm mission and to discuss scientific challenges for future work in this field.

Solar flares cause a rapid increase in ionization in the ionosphere owing to significant enhancement of ionizing solar radiation in the X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectral ranges. The change of electron densities in the ionosphere influences the propagation of radio waves. The ionospheric response to solar flares is investigated for three selected examples recorded during the maximum and decreasing phase of the solar cycle 24 with time resolution of several seconds by continuous Doppler sounding systems installed in the Czech Republic (50N, 14E), Taiwan (24N, 121E) and Northern Argentina (27S, 65W). The reflection heights of sounding signals are derived from nearby ionospheric sounders. The measured Doppler shifts are compared with EUV and X-ray data from the GOES-15 satellite. It is shown that the largest Doppler shifts are observed at times when the time derivatives of EUV fluxes are maximal, while the Doppler shifts are around zero at times when the EUV fluxes reach maxima. This means that loss processes balance the ionization when the EUV fluxes maximize. The attenuation of Doppler signal caused by enhanced electron density in the D and E layer was well correlated with the cosmic noise absorption measured by riometer. For large ionizing fluxes, the attenuation leads to very low signal-to-noise ratio, loss of the received signal, and inability to process both Doppler shift spectrograms and ionograms.

This paper was written by a group of European researchers believing that now is the right time to frame the Space Weather and Space Climate discipline in Europe for future years. It is devoted to openly discussing the organisation and sustainability of the European Space Weather community and its assets in the (near) future. More specifically, we suggest that the European Space Weather community lacks a uniting organisation to help the community to sustain and develop the successful efforts made thus far. Our aim is not to draw a complete and exhaustive panorama of Space Weather throughout the world, nor even throughout Europe. It is not a new white paper on the science and applications: there exist many (e.g. Tsurutani et al., 2020 Nonlinear Processes Geophys 27(1): 75–119); nor another roadmap: several important have been published recently (e.g. Schrijver et al., 2015. Adv Space Res 55(12): 2745–2807; Opgenoorth et al., 2019. J Space Weather Space Clim 9: A37). Our aim is to question our practices and organisation in front of several changes that have occurred in the recent years and to set the ground to provide coordinated answers to these questions being posed in Europe, and to make these answers discussed throughout the world. This group was assembled first through a series of sessions devoted to the sustainability of Space Weather research during the European Space Weather Week (ESWW) series of meetings, specifically: ESWW 14 (2017), ESWW 15 (2018), and ESWW 16 (2019). It then grew from discussions and personal contacts. The authors do not pretend to identify the full range of opinions in Europe, although they do come from 13 different European countries with a large span of ages (around half are below the age of 40 years old at the time of writing) with a good gender balance ending with a diverse mix of young and motivated scientists and senior people who have played a role in shaping the Space Weather community in Europe. The questions and the propositions to organise Space Weather in Europe in the future result from their discussions through these meetings and through remote meetings during the pandemic. We wish to share them with all those who consider themselves as members of the European Space Weather community and/or are interested in its future and to propose actions. We do this, bearing in mind that Europe plays a key international role in Space Weather which extends beyond the ESA and EU/EC geographic area.

This paper presents the automatic system for the processing of the signals from the frequency modulated interrupted continuous wave (FMICW) radar and describes methods for the primary signal processing. Further, we present methods for the detection of the targets in strong noise. These methods are tested both on the real and simulated signals. The real signals were measured using the developed at the IAP CAS experimental prototype of FMICW radar with operational frequency 35.4 GHz. The measurement campaign took place at the TU Delft, the Netherlands. The obtained results were used for development of the system for the automatic detection and analysis of the targets measured by the FMICW radar.