Spacecraft equipped with a solar sail could deliver earlier warnings of space weather threats to Earth’s technologies

Four large shiny pieces of fabric lay on the floor in a testing facility. .

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The burgeoning space industry and the technologies society increasingly relies on – electric grids, aviation and telecommunications – are all vulnerable to the same threat: space weather.