ESA’s Swarm trio monitoring
our planet’s magnetic shield
ESA’s three-satellite Swarm constellation was lofted into a nearpolar orbit by a Russian Rockot
launcher in late November, 2013.
For four years, it will monitor Earth’s
magnetic field, from the depth of
our planet’s core to the heights of
its upper atmosphere.
The Swarm satellites will give us
unprecedented insights into the
complex workings of the magnetic
shield that protects our biosphere
from charged particles and cosmic radiation. They will perform
precise measurements to evaluate
its current weakening and understand how it contributes to global
change.
The Rockot launcher lifted off
from the Plesetsk spaceport in
northern Russia at 12:02 GMT (13:02
CET) on 22 November.
Some 91 minutes later, its BreezeKM upper stage released the three
satellites into a near-polar circular
orbit at an altitude of 490 km.
Contact was established with the
trio minutes later through the Kiruna
station in Sweden and the Svalbard
station in Norway.
All three satellites are controlled
by ESA teams at the European
Space Operation Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. In the next hours
they will deploy their 4 m-long instrument booms. Over the next three
months of commissioning, their scientific payloads will be verified and
they will move to their respective
operational orbits.
The lower pair will fly in formation
side by side, about 150 km (10 seconds) apart at the equator and at
an initial altitude of 460 km, while
the upper satellite will rise to a higher orbit, at 530 km.
“Swarm is about to fill a gap in
our view of the Earth system and in
our monitoring of global change issues,” noted Volker Liebig, ESA’s director for Earth observation.
The magnetic field and electric currents near Earth generate complex forces that have
immeasurable impact on our everyday lives. Although we know that the magnetic field
originates from several sources, exactly how it is generated and why it changes is not yet
fully understood. ESA’s Swarm mission will help untangle the complexities of the field.
Image: ESA/ATG Medialab
“It will help us to better understand the field that protects us from
the particles and radiation coming
from the Sun.”
About Swarm
Swarm is ESA’s fourth Earth Explorer mission, coming after the successful CryoSat, GOCE and SMOS
satellites – all missions that expand
our knowledge of Earth and its environment.
The combination of data collected by Swarm will give precious
information on the sources of the
magnetic field inside Earth. This
includes understanding how the
magnetic field is related to the mo-
tion of molten iron in the outer core,
how the conductivity of the mantle
is related to its composition and
how the crust has been magnetised
over geological timescales.
They will also investigate how the
magnetic field relates to Earth’s
environment through the radiation
belts and their near-Earth effects,
including the solar wind energy input into the upper atmosphere.
Swarm will also be able to distinguish between the various sources
of our planet’s magnetic field and
ensure continuity in its monitoring from space in conjunction with
measurements from ground observatories.
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