ENGINEERINGNET.EU -- Astrium – a EADS company selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) as prime contractor for the Swarm mission – is currently carrying out extensive functional checks on the satellites at its supplier’s IABG test facility near Munich, in Germany.
Preparations for the launch are scheduled to begin in May 2012, when the three satellites will be shipped to Russia.
All three satellites will be launched simultaneously from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome (around 800 kilometres northeast of Moscow) on a single Rockot launch vehicle.
The satellites will be propulsed into a polar orbit at an altitude of 490 kilometres. After four years, two of the satellites will be steered into a lower orbit, circling the Earth in tandem at a height of 300 kilometres.
The course of the third, higher-orbiting satellite will then be altered to cross the path of the two satellites in the lower orbit at an angle of 90 degrees.
Scientists hope that the three identical Swarm satellites will provide the most accurate survey to date of the geomagnetic field and record any changes that occur.
(picture: EADS)
BACKGROUNDER
Astrium is the number one company in Europe and the third in the world for space technologies. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, dedicated to providing civil and defence space systems and services.
