NOAA SWPC Space Weather Terminal Dashboard

A modern, real-time terminal UI dashboard that displays space weather data from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Built with Rust and Ratatui, this application provides a comprehensive view of solar activity, geomagnetic conditions, and their potential impact on Earth.

Features

Real-Time Data Display

RSG Storm Scales: Current Radio Blackout (R), Solar Radiation Storm (S), and Geomagnetic Storm (G) levels with color-coded severity
3-Day Forecast: Predicted storm activity for the next three days
Solar Wind Data: 6-hour braille sparkline graphs of magnetic field strength (Bt), Bz component, solar wind speed, and proton density
World Map Visualization: High-resolution braille world map using Natural Earth coastline data (5,125 points), with live NOAA OVATION aurora oval (intensity-colored green → yellow → red), day/night terminator, inland sea detection, country borders, and launch site markers
Kp Index: Current planetary K-index with visual gauge
X-Ray Flux: Current solar flare class with color-coded indicator
Latest Flare Event: Details of the most recent solar flare (class, start/peak/end times)
Dst Index: 24-hour Disturbance Storm Time graph for geomagnetic storm monitoring
HF Band Conditions: Estimated propagation quality for amateur radio bands (160m through 2m) based on Solar Flux Index and Kp
Upcoming Launch: Next rocket launch from a tracked spaceport with live countdown timer, sourced from Launch Library 2
Launch Site Clocks: Real-time local time display for major spaceports worldwide
Audio Alerts: Optional WAV audio notifications when NOAA storm scale levels increase (G/S/R) or a new X-class flare is detected. Off by default — toggle with a (requires audio device; dashboard runs fine without one)

Interactive Features

Auto-refresh: Space weather data updates every 5 minutes; launch data refreshes hourly
Manual refresh: Press r to force an immediate data refresh
Responsive layout: Adapts to terminal window size
Clean exit: Press q or Ctrl+C to quit gracefully

Data Sources

All space weather data is fetched from NOAA SWPC public APIs:

RSG scales and 3-day forecast: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/products/noaa-scales.json
Solar wind magnetic field: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/json/rtsw/rtsw_mag_1m.json
Solar wind plasma data: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/json/rtsw/rtsw_wind_1m.json
Aurora nowcast (OVATION Prime): https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/json/ovation_aurora_latest.json
Solar flare events: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/json/goes/primary/xray-flares-latest.json
Kp-index: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/products/noaa-planetary-k-index.json
Dst index: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/products/kyoto-dst.json
10.7cm solar flux: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/products/summary/10cm-flux.json
3-day text forecast: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/text/3-day-forecast.txt

Launch data from Launch Library 2.

Requirements

Rust: 1.70 or newer (2021 edition)
Terminal: Minimum size of 120x30 characters recommended (160x40 for optimal viewing)
Internet connection: Required for fetching real-time data from NOAA SWPC and Launch Library 2 APIs

Installation

Prebuilt Binaries

Download the latest release for Linux (.tar.gz) or Windows (.zip) from the Releases page. Extract and run solardash (or solardash.exe) from the extracted folder — keep the audio/ directory next to the binary if you want audio alerts.

From Source

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Kracht/Solardash.git
cd Solardash

Build the project:
```
cargo build --release
```
The compiled binary will be located at target/release/solardash

Dependencies

The project uses the following main dependencies:

ratatui (0.29): Terminal UI framework
crossterm (0.28): Cross-platform terminal manipulation
tokio (1.42): Async runtime for concurrent data fetching
reqwest (0.12): HTTP client for API requests
serde (1.0) & serde_json (1.0): JSON parsing
chrono (0.4) & chrono-tz (0.10): Date, time, and timezone handling
rodio (0.19): Audio playback for alert notifications
anyhow (1.0): Error handling

All dependencies are managed by Cargo and will be automatically downloaded during the build process.

Usage

Running the Dashboard

Development mode:

cargo run

Release mode (optimized):

cargo run --release

Running the compiled binary:

./target/release/solardash

Keyboard Controls

Key	Action
`q` / `Esc`	Quit the application
`Ctrl+C`	Force quit
`r`	Manually refresh all data
`i`	Toggle metric info overlay
`l`	Toggle launch site connector lines
`a`	Toggle audio alerts (off by default)

Terminal Setup

For the best experience:

Use a terminal with good Unicode support (most modern terminals)
Set your terminal to at least 120x30 characters (160x40 recommended)
Use a dark background for optimal color contrast
Ensure your terminal supports 256 colors or true color

Dashboard Layout

The dashboard is organized into several key sections:

Header Section (Top)

Left: Last update timestamp (UTC)
Center: Current UTC time and date (large format)
Right: Local time display

Launch Site Clocks

Real-time local clocks for major spaceports: Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg, Starbase, Kourou, Baikonur, Jiuquan, and Tanegashima.

RSG Storm Scale Bar

Current storm levels for Radio Blackout (R), Solar Radiation (S), and Geomagnetic (G) scales
Color-coded severity indicators (Green -> Yellow -> Orange -> Red -> Dark Red)
3-day forecast matrix showing predicted activity levels

Three-Panel Layout

Left Panel - Solar Wind (SWEPAM 6h)

Braille sparkline charts displaying 6-hour data for:

Magnetic field total strength (Bt) in nT
Magnetic field Bz component in nT (with positive/negative coloring)
Solar wind speed in km/s
Proton density in particles/cm3

Center Panel - World Map

High-resolution braille Unicode world map (Natural Earth 5,125-point coastline dataset)
Aurora oval from the NOAA OVATION Prime nowcast, colored by activity (green → yellow → red); falls back to a Kp-derived boundary if the feed is unavailable
Day/night terminator line with land fill shading
Country borders for major nations
Launch site cross markers (+) for tracked spaceports
Inland sea detection (Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caspian, etc.)
Geographic latitude scale and UTC offset axis

Right Panel - Events & Forecasts

Current Kp-index with visual gauge
X-ray flux level (current flare class)
Latest solar flare event details (class, start/peak/end times)
24-hour Dst (Disturbance Storm Time) index graph
HF band conditions (160m-2m) with Good/Fair/Poor indicators
Upcoming launch panel with live countdown, vehicle, mission, orbit, and launch site

Project Structure

solardash/
├── Cargo.toml           # Project configuration and dependencies
├── README.md            # This file
├── solardash.png         # Screenshot
├── audio/               # WAV alert sounds (G1-G3, S1-S3, R1-R3, XClass)
└── src/
    ├── main.rs          # Application entry point and UI rendering
    ├── lib.rs           # Library root module
    ├── alerts.rs        # Audio alert system for storm scale transitions
    ├── api.rs           # API client for NOAA SWPC and Launch Library 2 endpoints
    ├── data.rs          # Data structures and parsing logic
    ├── map.rs           # Braille world map rendering, aurora overlay, and flood fill
    ├── world_data.rs    # Natural Earth high-resolution coastline coordinates (5,125 points)
    ├── colors.rs        # RGB color theme constants
    └── bin/
        └── test_api.rs  # Standalone API testing utility

Development

Building for Development

cargo build

Running Tests

cargo test

Checking Code Quality

# Run Clippy for linting
cargo clippy

# Format code
cargo fmt

Testing API Connectivity

A standalone test utility is included to verify API connectivity:

cargo run --bin test_api

This will fetch and display data from all NOAA SWPC endpoints without starting the full UI.

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

"No Data" displayed in panels:

Check your internet connection
Verify NOAA SWPC services are online: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
Try manually refreshing with the r key

Layout appears broken or garbled:

Ensure your terminal size is at least 120x30 characters
Verify your terminal supports Unicode characters (braille characters U+2800-U+28FF are used extensively)
Try resizing the terminal window

Colors not displaying correctly:

Ensure your terminal supports 256 colors or true color
Try a different terminal emulator (recommended: Alacritty, Kitty, iTerm2, Windows Terminal)

Application won't compile:

Verify Rust version: rustc --version (requires 1.70+)
Update Rust: rustup update
Clean build artifacts: cargo clean then cargo build

Performance Notes

Space weather data refreshes every 5 minutes; launch data refreshes every hour
UI updates at approximately 1 Hz for smooth clock display
Network requests are async and non-blocking (9 concurrent NOAA fetches via tokio::join)
Memory footprint is typically under 10MB

Acknowledgments

Space weather data provided by NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)
Launch data provided by The Space Devs - Launch Library 2
World map coastline data from Natural Earth via gnuplotting.org
Built with Ratatui terminal UI framework

Additional Resources

Note: This is a real-time monitoring tool. For critical space weather alerts and warnings, always refer to official NOAA SWPC bulletins and alerts at https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
audio		audio
src		src
tests		tests
.gitignore		.gitignore
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
README.md		README.md
solardash.png		solardash.png

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