India's first space weather reading centre in Kolkata

 A centre of excellence specialising
in reading space weather conditions to help air traffic on
polar routes would come up here by the middle of this year,
the first of its kind in the country.
"It will be a centre of excellence in space sciences.
The centrers main thrust will be on areas of space weather
especially weather in the solar system and gravitational
physics," its coordinator, scientist Dibyendu Nandi told reporter's 
here.
Besides air traffic on polar routes, the centre would
help in the functioning of GPS networks and mobile satellites
placed in space.
Nandi said coronal mass ejections (CME) and solar flares
were two kinds of storms originating from the sun which
exposed flights to immense amounts of radiation over polar
regions.
Several commercial flights from south Asia, Europe and
north America flew over the polar regions to cut short time
and distance.
  Nandi said if the weather in the solar system was not
good it would impact the functioning of satellites, which in
turn would have an adverse effect on the GPS system and mobile
networks.
The centre, approved by the Union HRD ministry, would
come up at the Indian Institute of Science, Education and
Research (IISER) campus. The ministry has sanctioned Rs four
crore for it. 
"If we have prior information about a storm
originating in the solar system or space, or any other changes
in space weather, we will inform the civil aviation department
about it so that they inform different airlines about the
hazards of flying in polar or high altitudes," Nandi said.
"We will also inform the telecommunication department
about changes in space weather so that they can safeguard
their satellites in space. If you are aware of a storm in
space then you can at least take safeguards which will in turn
increase the longevity of satellites," he said.
Nandi said the centre would offer its readings free
initially to the civil aviation and telecommunication
department and later commercially.
According to Nandi, one of the suspected reasons behind
the Chandrayan mission falling short of its expected lifespan
by one year was technical problems which arose from radiation
from storms originating in space.
"It is suspected that very high radiation in space due
to changes in space weather damaged Chandrayan and was one of
the main reasons behind the mission ending in 2009," he said.
The centre would also work in field of gravitational
physics in terms of analysing data, he added.
Nandi, also involved in India's first solar mission
'Aditya' slated to be launched in 2016, said the space weather
reading center would help analyse the data for it.
The centre would also offer PhD programs to students
interested in space sciences.