Space weather is an under-recognised threat to critical infrastructure. Examine how indigenous solar missions such as Aditya-L1 can strengthen India's preparedness.

Space weather is the set of disturbances caused by the Sun: solar flares, the solar wind and coronal mass ejections (CMEs, clouds of hot plasma thrown out by the Sun). CMEs can disrupt near-Earth space [1]. Unlike cyclones, space weather barely features in disaster planning, yet India's growing reliance on satellites leaves it more exposed. Aditya-L1 is India's first home-built tool to watch for it.

An under-recognised threat

• Satellites: in February 2022, a geomagnetic storm described as only minor to moderate created enough extra drag to pull down 38 of 49 new Starlink satellites [5].
• Orbits and operations: the May 2024 "Gannon" storm, the first G5 (severe) storm in over two decades, forced satellites to manoeuvre and pushed NASA's ICESat-2 into safe mode [4].
• Wider exposure: the same storms threaten NavIC/GNSS, HF radio, aviation and power grids, which make the threat systemic.

How Aditya-L1 strengthens preparedness

• Continuous watch: its halo orbit around Sun–Earth L1, about 1.5 million km away, gives a view of the Sun with no eclipses or blind spots [2].
• Which way a CME is heading: IIA scientists used VELC data to make Doppler velocity images. These show motion along the Sun–Earth line, which ordinary coronagraph images cannot capture [1]. VELC had already tracked a CME being deflected in July 2024 [7].
• Seeing a CME and confirming it: 7 payloads, all indigenous: 4 remote-sensing + 3 in-situ [2]. Eruptions seen at the Sun can later be confirmed as they pass L1.
• Strategic autonomy: India relies less on foreign data, and the Announcement of Opportunity (AO) cycle opens the data to Indian researchers [3].

Gaps to bridge

• Built for science, not warnings: observing time is shared out in fixed AO windows [3]. NOAA's SWFO-L1, launched in September 2025, is a dedicated operational warning mission [6].
• Direction is not impact: CMEs change speed and can merge on the way to Earth, as in May 2024 [4]. Arrival time and damage stay uncertain.

Aditya-L1 has given India its own eyes on the Sun, but those observations still have to become warnings. The way forward is to:

• check VELC's direction calls against its own in-situ data;
• plan a follow-on operational mission;
• write NDMA protocols for satellite and grid operators;
• share data with NOAA.

That would turn scientific excellence into resilient infrastructure, in line with the Sendai Framework's focus on preparedness.