SCIENCE  HIGHLIGHTS  -  MAY  2004

Purucker, Sabaka and Hulot Help Make SWARM a Winner
ESA Picks Magnetic Field Constellation as its New Earth Science Mission

I am happy to announce that the Earth Observation Programme Board of ESA at its meeting Friday, May 28, decided to . approve the mission Swarm  Earths Magnetic Field and Environment Explorers for full implementation and launch in 2009 as the next Explorer No. 5. 
			-- Eigil Friis-Christensen, Director, Danish Space Research Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

ESA has picked its next Explorer mission, and it is one in which the GSFC Geodynamics Branch is strongly involved.  Swarm, a magnetic field constellation mission, chosen over six other Earth Science missions by the Earth Observation Program Board, is scheduled for launch in 2009. This will complete a six-mission Decade of Geopotential Research begun with the 1999 launch of the Danish satellite Oersted and including launches of SAC-C (2000), CHAMP (2000), GRACE (2001) and GOCE (2006).

The SWARM concept consists of a constellation of three satellites in two different polar orbits between 400 and 550 km altitude. Each satellite will make high-precision and high-resolution measurements of the Earths magnetic field. Together they provide observations of the geomagnetic field needed to model its various sources.


Mike Purucker and Terry Sabaka of Code 921s (Raytheon ITSS) Geomagnetic Studies Group, were instrumental in the success of Swarm.  They, along with Gauthier Hulot (see box, far right) were part of a team performing simulation studies during the Phase A portion of the selection process, using Goddards unique Comprehensive Magnetic Field Model as a basis for predicting the ability of Swarm to recover high-quality, high-resolution magnetic field data.

Mike Purucker (upper right) is one of several US co-investigators (3 are from GSFC!) selected for the SWARM science team, and was the only US participant asked by ESA to serve on the original Mission Advisory Group (MAG) in the 1.5 year Phase A Study period.  Terry Sabaka (lower right) is the architect of the current versions of the Comprehensive Magnetic Field Model, which was an essential tool used to simulate the ability of SWARM to meet its proposed measurement objectives.


Gauthier Hulot, from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, is a French co-proposer of the SWARM mission and a member of the Phase A Mission Advisory Group. Hulot is spending this year working at GSFC with both Sabaka and Purucker.


Contacts:  Mike Purucker & Terry Sabaka, GSFC, Code 921, purucker@geomag.gsfc.nasa.gov & sabaka@geomag.gsfc.nasa.gov