SWARM

STATUS: Running

The objective of the Swarm mission is to provide the best ever survey of the geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution, and gain new insights into improving our knowledge of the Earth’s interior and climate.

The Swarm concept consists of a constellation of three satellites in three different polar orbits between 400 and 550 km altitude. High-precision and high-resolution measurements of the strength and direction of the magnetic field will be provided by each satellite. In combination, they will provide the necessary observations that are required to model various sources of the geomagnetic field. GPS receivers, an accelerometer and an electric field instrument will provide supplementary information for studying the interaction of the magnetic field with other physical quantities describing the Earth system.

Czech Republic participates in SWARM mission by production of three acceleroemeters. The primary task of PECS project is to “Support activities for the development of the accelerometres for SWARM”. The target is to improve skills of Czech industrial teams involved in the ESA projects namely in areas, which have been identified during previous ESA reviews.

In particular the need to support qualification process of the payload development was identified in areas of product assurance, verification and testing, procedures and documentation and team adequacy and skills. The part of supported activity is training program for Czech companies participated in space missions.

---

Project duration: 2008 - 2011
Approved budget: 870 000 €
Principal investigator: Martin Holl
Address: VZLÚ, a.s.
Beranových 130
199 05 Praha - Letňany