OpenC3 COSMOS Hale Space Weather Forecast plugin

OpenC3 COSMOS plugin for the HaleSWx space weather API. It polls the /forecast and /nowcast endpoints, decodes the CelesTrak CssiSpaceWeather documents they return into COSMOS telemetry, and ships screens plus a custom widget for viewing the results.

What you get

Piece	Where
GET_FORECAST / GET_NOWCAST commands	targets/HALE_SWX/cmd_tlm/cmd.txt
FORECAST_RESPONSE, NOWCAST_RESPONSE, ERROR_RESPONSE packets	targets/HALE_SWX/cmd_tlm/tlm.txt and _spacewx_response.txt
COSMOS-native screen	targets/HALE_SWX/screens/hale_swx.txt
Custom widget screens	targets/HALE_SWX/screens/forecast.txt, nowcast.txt
Storm simulation script	targets/HALE_SWX/procedures/solar_storm_test.py

Install

1. Build the gem (needs node and pnpm for the widget):

   pnpm install
   rake build VERSION=1.0.0

   Or in the OpenC3 node container:

   docker run -it -v `pwd`:/openc3/local:z -w /openc3/local openc3inc/openc3-node sh
   /openc3/local $ pnpm install && rake build VERSION=1.0.0

2. Install the .gem through Admin → Plugins.

3. Create the API key secret in Admin → Secrets, named HALE_API_KEY, then connect the interface.

Plugin variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
hale_target_name	HALE_SWX	Target name
hostname	api.haleswx.com	API hostname
protocol	https	http or https
port	443	API port
poll_period	12	Hours between polls; 0 disables polling

The interface sends GET_FORECAST and GET_NOWCAST on connect (OPTION CONNECT_CMD) so a fresh install has data immediately, then repeats them every poll_period hours via OPTION PERIODIC_CMD.

The API key

The key is never written into the plugin configuration or the command log. It is delivered as an environment variable by the SECRET keyword and added to the request headers at send time by a write protocol:

PROTOCOL WRITE api_key_protocol.py X-API-KEY HALE_API_KEY
SECRET ENV HALE_API_KEY HALE_API_KEY

Limits

OBSERVED_AP_AVG and PREDICTED_AP_AVG are limits checked:

LIMITS DEFAULT 1 ENABLED -2 -1 48 100

ap 48 is roughly Kp 5 (G1 storm) and ap 100 is roughly Kp 6.7 (G3), so yellow means a storm is underway and red means a strong one.

Testing without waiting for real space weather

targets/HALE_SWX/procedures/solar_storm_test.py walks a simulated storm from quiet through G1, G3 and G5 and back, injecting both scalars and the 15-day arrays with a pause between stages so the limits and charts can be watched.

Run it from Script Runner. Note that inject_tlm writes item values into the packet buffer and SpaceWxAccessor is currently read-only, so the accessor needs to accept writes before the script will run end to end.

License

See LICENSE.md.