Some of the Facts on SOHO and Space Weather (Score 3, Informative)

(1) SOHO has far exceeded it's 2-3 year life expectancy by about 7 years. (2) It still transmits data - just significantly slower (3) The new NOAA GOES SXI (SOLAR X-ray imager) insturment is up and running (www.sec.noaa.gov),creating images every five minutes directly at the NOAA Space Environment Center. It is the official operational X-ray imager now. (4) Space is extremely hostile to satellites (high-energy particles, spacecraft charging, meteoroid impacts, radical temperature changes, etc.) Loss of spacecraft after several years is normal. (5) The economic impact to society has been estimated to be of the order of $10 - $100 million/yr (power grids, satellite drag, disrupted radio communications, GPS inaccuracies, etc.)... and growing every year with our increasingly complex technological systems (6) Recent research had shown about 30-40% of global climate change is due to solar variability There is a lot more to Space Weather than one may guess... -Dave, SpaceWx.com