Validation of Solar Energetic Particle Forecasting Models for Space Radiation Operations with SPHINX and VIVID

NASA human exploration missions seek to bring astronauts to new radiation environments outside the protection of the Earth’s magnetosphere. In these environments, crew members experience an increased risk of radiation exposure from transient enhancements caused by solar energetic particle (SEP) events. SEP forecasting models seek to give operators both an assessment of the likelihood of these events and advance warning that can improve response times and be used in operational decision making. The ISEP project has been developed to gather and assess SEP forecasting models from across the field. In this report, we present the first systematic validation of model performance for a set of 11 models deployed on the ISEP SEP Scoreboards and validated in the SEPVAL community challenge. The validation results allow us to define state-of-the-art model performance and develop
reasonable requirements for forecasting models to be used in operations. We also discuss the application of these results to understanding model performance from the operator perspective.