The Swarm Constellation Will Look Inside the Earth

Roland Piquepaille writes "Among six Earth Explorer candidate missions, the European Space Agency (ESA) has chosen a 'Swarm' of satellites to look inside the Earth and to do the best survey ever of the Earth's geomagnetic field. The mission, scheduled for launch in 2009, will consist of three satellites released by a single rocket. Two will fly side-by-side 450 km above us while the third one will cruise at an altitude of 530 km. In "ESA to probe Earth's magnetic field," the Register also looks at this future mission which will lead to a better analysis of the Sun's influence in our solar system. More details and illustrations are available in this overview."

Comments

Re:If for no other reason

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a geophysist, not a pilot. We normally use IGRF. It has the history of the magnetic field as well as future predictions. It's very accurate and is updates at every five years. That sounds the same as what you are talking about, but you can make a new map every year that's much more accurate than last years, even without a new model. The drift of the field isn't random.

Pilots only need a very gross measurement of magnetic field. They really only care about the field coming from the earth's core. We measure the field coming from the core and the rocks then remove the core's field. The field from the rocks is much smaller, but can tell you a lot.

Re:If for no other reason

[Discoflamingo13]

Magnetic headings are usually the first fallback during severe weather conditions, and avionics companies want the maps of the variations to be as accurate as possible. For verification purposes, most companies won't rely on predictions (regardless of how accurate they most certainly are) - they want to see hard measurements based on the most current data. This is largely because these decision are made by businesses, and not science firms - but it doesn't make your point any less valid.