The United Kingdom government has made progress in building resilience against severe space weather but still faces significant gaps in preparedness, according to a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO).
The watchdog found that whilst the government has strengthened its forecasting capability – most notably through the Met Office’s Space Weather Operations Centre – critical shortcomings remain, including an incomplete understanding across departments of how key sectors plan to respond to an emergency.
Space weather refers to solar phenomena, primarily from the Sun, that can alter the atmosphere and the environment in near-Earth space. These include solar flares, which are sudden bursts of electromagnetic energy. A severe event could trigger disruptions to air travel, localised power outages, and interference with satellite services.
The potential economic cost of such an event was estimated in 2022 at £9bn, though the NAO noted this figure carries uncertainty due to gaps in scientific understanding – including how short disruptions to global navigation satellite systems would affect transport.
On November 11, a powerful X-class solar flare – the strongest of the year – erupted from the Sun, triggering a severe geomagnetic storm that produced auroras visible as far south as Florida and Texas in the United States. The event also caused a temporary high-frequency radio blackout across parts of Europe, Africa and Asia, lasting up to around an hour. Elevated space weather conditions in the days that followed prompted NASA to postpone the launch of its ESCAPADE mission due to the increased risk to spacecraft systems.
Severe space weather has been listed on the UK’s National Risk Register since 2011, when it was formally recognised as one of the country’s highest-priority natural hazards.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which formally assumed co-ordination of the government’s work on severe space weather in December 2025, spent around £6.7m in 2025–26 on the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre. The UK has also committed around £300m to the European Space Agency’s Vigil mission, a satellite designed to improve the accuracy of forecasts of coronal mass ejection arrival times. It is expected to launch in 2031 with an operational life of five years.
Despite these investments, the NAO identified a range of unresolved issues. Forecasting remains complex, with warning windows ranging from no notice at all to 96 hours, depending on the type of event. The resilience of the UK’s space weather monitoring capability was also described as vulnerable.
The report further noted that roles and responsibilities for managing the risk remain unclear and that the government’s 2021 preparedness strategy, which contained 12 high-level commitments, did not specify what outcomes were sought, what level of residual impact was acceptable, or what the initiatives would cost.
Whilst the Met Office has worked with certain industries, such as the electricity sector, to develop specialist forecasts, other sectors have continued to find technical information difficult to interpret. The government has also yet to develop pre-agreed public communications for use during an emergency, nor has it run a full simulation exercise involving local responders.
In February, DSIT commissioned updated response plans from departments, building on earlier work by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
The NAO recommended that the government define the outcomes it is seeking and test its plans against a range of plausible scenarios; work with the Met Office to establish what long-term forecasting capability and level of resilience are required; and develop a more detailed whole-of-society approach, including a communications plan for businesses and citizens.
“The government has invested in improving the UK’s forecasting and is taking steps to increase its resilience to severe space weather,” said Gareth Davies, head of the NAO. “As the government develops its new severe space weather preparedness strategy, DSIT and the Met Office should work collaboratively to further improve forecasting and resilience.”
