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První velký kontrakt s ESA

CZECH EQUIPMENT WILL FLY ABOARD THE EUROPEAN “SWARM” PROBE

Prague, 7 March 2008 – Aerospace Research and Test Establishment (VZLÚ, a. s.) has concluded a contract with a company EADS Astrium to create one testing and three fully flight-capable pieces of microaccelerometers for a ESA’s scientific mission named Swarm. It is the first big equipment-supply contract of a Czech company for the ESA probes. Apart from the VZLÚ, other fourteen Czech organizations are going to take part.

The task of the Swarm mission (start anticipated in the year 2010) is to measure the intensity, orientation and alterations of the Earth’s geomagnetic field – using a set of three probes. These measurements are going to be revolutionary in some ways – in the way that they are going to take place in cosmos and that they could be done over several regions of Earth simultaneously. Up until now, all the measurements of the geomagnetic field were taken from the ground. The measurements of the Swarm mission will allow us to move the frontiers of the scientific knowledge especially in the branch of Earth’s climate, ocean currents and geological interior of the planet (the dynamics of the core in particular).

Parallel to this contract, a project of the same name “Swarm” is going to take place within the PECS (Plan for European Cooperating States), a programmme that is coordinated in our country by Czech Space Office. The project´s goal is to offer a possibility to train Czech professionals for the work on aerospace projects in quality and form required by ESA. The trainings are not going to be restricted to the main issues of the project Swarm, but they are going to be tailored to suit even other Czech companies that would show interest in it. The project is designed to be open and its point is then to increase the qualification of the Czech industry, which would help Czech companies to realize the future ESA projects.