The Space Weather can be understood as the knowledge and prediction of the response of the space environment to the continuous changes of the solar phenomena (solar activity). Thus, the effects of Space Weather on Earth are the result of several factors, which include the behavior of the Sun, interplanetary space, the Earth’s magnetic field (magnetosphere) and the nature of the atmosphere. Ejections and explosions inject large amounts of solar mass and solar energy in the interplanetary medium, forming the solar wind and its transient, reaching the Earth and causing geomagnetic storms and a number of geophysical phenomena that affect from the operation of satellites orbiting the earth until the use of GPS receivers on the surface. In addition to the solar wind, the marked increase in UV radiation, to the X-ray changes the behavior of the neutral atmosphere, destroying the ozone layer and modifying the ionospheric effects among others.
These effects are particularly important in the ionosphere (the region from 80 to 1000 km height), which proves highly variable and responds differently to these control agents, especially in the Brazilian equatorial region. The ionospheric disturbance receives both from above (the magnetosphere) and low (forecast activity and propagation of gravity waves in the mesosphere). In this case, understanding the processes of the system magnetosphere-ionosphere-mesosphere equatorial has great impact on the technological development of society. These phenomena strongly influence the activities and systems for space applications, causing significant interference and even interruptions links ionospheric and trans-ionospheric telecommunication system (GPS satellite and those intended for remote sensing by radar), and even technological systems in Earth’s surface (induced electric currents affecting transformers power transmission lines and cathodic protection of pipelines to transport oil and gas).
In the Brazilian space environment, such effects are particularly intense because of the large size of the country, distributed to the north and south of the geomagnetic equator, the geomagnetic declination and the maximum presence of the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly For example, the occurrence of bubbles plasma in the ionosphere is more frequent in Brazil than in other places. In search of a better understanding of the electrodynamic processes and peculiar phenomenology of the equatorial and low latitudes, this program aims primarily to monitor the physical parameters of scents for modeling the equatorial ionosphere, such as the parameters of the Sun, interplanetary space, the magnetosphere, ionosphere and the mesosphere, view them in real time, and develop a model for predicting Space Weather in the equatorial region, particularly with the prediction of occurrence of geomagnetic storms, plasma bubbles and disturbances in the ionosphere.