To help forecast auroral conditions, scientists use a combination of both space and ground-based data. There are several spacecraft in orbit around the Earth that provide real-time observations of the sun, the solar wind, and the aurora.
POLAR The Polar Spacecraft was launched February 24th, 1996 to study the aurora, the radiation belt, and magnetic & electric fields in space. It carries two specially developed cameras, the VIS and the UVI, which image the entire auroral oval in the Ultra-Violet wavelengths. Examination of this data help scientists match particle measurements mad in space with visual features of the auroral oval.
	ACE Advanced Composition Explorer Launched on August 25th, 1997 to study energetic particles from both the Sun and outside our solar system. Among other measurements, this spacecraft determines the speed of the solar wind and also measures the strength and direction of the magnetic field in the solar wind. When the direction of the magnetic field measured by ACE is "negative," i.e., pointing down relative to the Earth's North pole, increasing amounts of solar wind energy are transferred into the Earth's magnetosphere, the immediate space around the Earth protected by the geomagnetic field.
SOHO Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Launched on December 2, 1995, SOHO was designed to study the internal structure of the sun, its outer atmosphere, and how the solar wind is generated. Solar flares, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), and other violent events on the surface can be measured by SOHO and serve as a warning that disturbances in the solar wind may reach the Earth within a matter of days.