Space Environment Technologies Opens Corporate Office in Logan, Utah
Space Environment Technologies (SET), with affiliates in seven states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Texas, has now opened a new corporate presence in Logan, Utah. SET, a privately-held company, conducts space science research, provides space weather operations and develops space systems standards.
“The company was motivated to locate personnel and facilities in Logan from its close ties with the Utah State University USTAR Space Weather Center,” said W. Kent Tobiska, president of SET. “The Logan SET office not only will handle the company’s administrative functions but will also provide an exciting, newly expanded networking capability for SET’s operational servers.”
SET’s main customers are U.S. Air Force, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and National Science Foundation agencies, as well as international commercial aerospace firms that use SET’s solar forecasts for helping with satellite operations.
Space Environment Technologies and the USU USTAR Space Weather Center, of which Tobiska is executive director, have worked together in the past. In 2009, the USTAR SWC developed and released “SpaceWx,” a popular iPhone app available through iTunes. The SpaceWx app shows the three major domains of space weather: the dynamic variability of the Sun’s photons, particles and fields as they affect Earth and 21st century technology.
For example, the first of its kind app shows real-time space weather using current images of the sun including flares, coronal mass ejections and disturbances to the solar wind. Additionally, SpaceWx shows subsequent pressure on the magnetosphere that disrupts satellite communications, causes radio communication frequencies to change and reduces the accuracy of GPS receivers. Space Environment Technologies is a major content provider for SpaceWx.
About the USTAR Space Weather Center: The Utah State University (USU) Space Weather Center is an initiative by the State of Utah USTAR program to help create a vibrant economy in Utah related to space weather. Located on the USU campus in Logan, Utah, the Center is developing innovative applications for mitigating space weather in technical systems. The ionosphere is a key region that affects communication and navigation systems of the space environments that are affected by space weather. The Space Weather Center at USU is committed to developing and providing real-time, operational products for customers that will help them mitigate adverse space weather effects on communication and navigation systems. For example, two broad areas of product development are in radio communications and in navigation.
About USTAR: The Utah Science Technology and Research initiative (USTAR) is a long-term, state-funded investment to strengthen Utah’s “knowledge economy” and generate high-paying jobs. Funded in March 2006 by the State Legislature, USTAR is based on three program areas. The first area involves funding for strategic investments at the University of Utah and Utah State University to recruit world-class researchers. The second area is to build state-of-the-art interdisciplinary facilities at these institutions for the innovation teams. The third program area involves teams that work with companies and entrepreneurs across the state to promote science, innovation and commercialization activities. For more information, go to www.innovationutah.com or follow http://twitter.com/Innovationutah. For USU news visit http://economicdevelopment.usu.edu or follow USU USTAR http://twitter.com/USU_USTAR and USU Technology Commercialization Office http://twitter.com/USU_TechCom.