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Volume 58 Supplement 4

Special Issue: Swarm—The Earth’s Magnetic Field and Environment Explorers

The Swarm End-to-End mission simulator study: A demonstration of separating the various contributions to Earth’s magnetic field using synthetic data

Earth, Planets and Space volume 58, pages 359–370 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Swarm, a satellite constellation to measure Earth’s magnetic field with unpreceded accuracy, has been selected by ESA for launch in 2009. The mission will provide the best ever survey of the geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution, in order to gain new insights into the Earth system by improving our understanding of the Earth’s interior and climate. An End-to-End mission performance simulation was carried out during Phase A of the mission, with the aim of analyzing the key system requirements, particularly with respect to the number of Swarm satellites and their orbits related to the science objectives of Swarm. In order to be able to use realistic parameters of the Earth’s environment, the mission simulation starts at January 1, 1997 and lasts until re-entry of the lower satellites five years later. Synthetic magnetic field values were generated for all relevant contributions to Earth’s magnetic field: core and lithospheric fields, fields due to currents in the ionosphere and magnetosphere, due to their secondary, induced, currents in the oceans, lithosphere and mantle, and fields due to currents coupling the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Several independent methods were applied to the synthetic data to analyze various aspects of field recovery in relation to different number of satellites, different constellations and realistic noise sources. This paper gives an overview of the study activities, describes the generation of the synthetic data, and assesses the obtained results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Danish National Space Center, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Nils Olsen & Alexei Kuvshinov

  2. Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes, ESTEC/ESA, Postbus 299, NL-2200 AG, Noordwijk ZH, The Netherlands

    Roger Haagmans

  3. Geodynamics Branch, GSFC/NASA, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA

    Terence J. Sabaka & Michael E. Purucker

  4. National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA, Boulder, CO, 80305-3328, USA

    Stefan Maus

  5. GFZ Potsdam, Telegrafenberg, D-14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Martin Rother & Mioara Mandea

  6. British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3LA, Scotland

    Vincent Lesur

  7. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, 4, Place Jussieu, B89, Tour 24, F-75252, Paris cedex 054, France

    Mioara Mandea

Authors
  1. Nils Olsen
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  2. Roger Haagmans
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  3. Terence J. Sabaka
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  4. Alexei Kuvshinov
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  5. Stefan Maus
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  6. Michael E. Purucker
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  7. Martin Rother
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  8. Vincent Lesur
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  9. Mioara Mandea
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Correspondence to Nils Olsen.

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Olsen, N., Haagmans, R., Sabaka, T.J. et al. The Swarm End-to-End mission simulator study: A demonstration of separating the various contributions to Earth’s magnetic field using synthetic data. Earth Planet Sp 58, 359–370 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03351934

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03351934

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