ESA’s Second International Science Meeting on the Swarm
mission was held from 24 to 26 June 2009 in the beautiful
city of Potsdam in Germany. The programme covered scientific
aspects and the current status of ESA’s magnetic field
mission Swarm. This meeting is the second in a series
dedicated to the Swarm mission. The first meeting took place
in May 2006 at the University of Nantes in France.
The Swarm mission was selected for full implementation as
ESA’s 5th Earth Explorer in 2004. The opportunity mission
Swarm, with lead proposers Eigil Friis-Christensen, Hermann
Lühr and Gauthier Hulot, is scheduled to be launched in
2011. The mission will continue the series of high-precision
magnetic observations from Ørsted, CHAMP and SAC-C that
started in 1999. Swarm will make it possible to complete
more than a decade of magnetic filed observations within the
context of the "International Decade of Geopotential
Research" and provide the best-ever survey of the
geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution.
It will lead to new insights into the Earth system by
improving our understanding of the Earth’s interior and its
effect on geospace, the vast region around the Earth where
electro-dynamic processes are influenced by the Earth’s
magnetic field. The mission will comprise a constellation of
three satellites, with two spacecraft flying side-by-side at
lower initial altitude (at app. 490 km), thereby measuring
the East-West gradient of the magnetic field, and the third
one flying initially at higher altitude (530 km).
High-precision and high-resolution measurements of the
strength, direction and variation of the magnetic field,
complemented by precise navigation, accelerometer and
electric field measurements, will provide the necessary
observations that are required to separate and model the
various sources of the geomagnetic field. It will also allow
an analysis of the Sun’s influence on the Earth system. In
addition practical applications in areas, such as space
weather, radiation hazards, navigation and resource
management, could benefit from the Swarm mission. More
information on Swarm can be found at:
http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPswarm.html
The Second Swarm International Science Meeting aimed to
bring together scientists and students, working in all
fields of geomagnetism and/or the near-Earth electromagnetic
environment, who will benefit from the Swarm constellation
of three satellites. Scientists already involved in analyses
of satellite mission data and/or ground-based observations
were attending the meeting but also scientists working on
potential areas the Swarm mission could address
participated. The attendees could:
· receive the latest information about the mission status,
data products, and scientific
goals,
· have the opportunity to present new scientific results
related to the mission's objectives,
· receive information about user access to data products,
and
· have the chance to participate in workshops on product
validation activities.
In total 160 participants from 27 different countries
attended the meeting held at GFZ worldwide: 18 different
European countries, and in addition, Algeria, Australia,
Brazil, Canada, India, the Russian Federation, South Africa,
Ukraine and the United States. From all submitted
contributions, a meeting programme without parallel sessions
was compiled with 34 oral and 61 poster presentations. These
covered a wide range of scientific areas related to the
objectives of the Swarm mission and beyond. On the second
afternoon the participants split into three groups to follow
dedicated workshops. The aim was to discuss potential ideas
for validation of Swarm products. The first was moderated by
Stefan Maus (NOAA/NGDC and CIRES, USA) and Nils Olsen (DTU
Space, Denmark), the second by David Knudsen (University of
Calgary, Canada) and Hermann Lühr (GFZ German Research
Centre for Geosciences, Germany), and the third by Sean
Bruinsma (CNES, France) and Pieter Visser (Delft University
of Technology, the Netherlands). All submitted (non-peer
reviewed) contributions are published by ESA in these
proceedings either in the form of a paper, as presentation
or as poster, leaving the responsibility of the contents to
the authors.
The meeting was very well organised at GFZ German Research
Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany, which certainly
encouraged everyone to actively participate and contribute
to the successful outcome of it. I would like to thank the
local organizing committee Mioara Mandea, Hermann Lühr,
Vincent Lesur,
Patricia Ritter, Alexander Jordan, and Martina Krüger for
their commitment in organizing this meeting together with
the ESA conference bureau. I would like to express my
gratitude to the scientific committee for creating an
interesting and inspiring programme, and also to the chairs
of the sessions and the moderators of the workshops for
guiding us through the programme and for leading the
discussions. The participants enjoyed an
Icebreaker organised in the Belvedere at Pfingstberg
including the speech by Jann Jacobs, mayor of Potsdam. The
excellent dinner in the famous historic setting of the
Cecilienhof palace concluded the second day. The
organisation of the meeting depended largely on the kind
sponsorship from ESA, GFZ German Research Centre for
Geosciences, the City of Potsdam, the German Aerospace
Center (DLR), and EADS Astrium, which is highly appreciated.
EADS Astrium kindly provided an award for the best poster.
The award was handed out to Aurelie Marchaudon, who represented the winning poster “Electrodynamics of
Field-aligned Currents in the Magnetosphere-ionosphere
System” by A. Marchaudon, J.-C. Cerisier, and F. Pitout.
Finally, I would like to thank all participants for their
professional, constructive and enthusiastic participation,
which made this meeting a memorable one.
Roger Haagmans
European Space Agency
December 2009
Noordwijk
The Netherlands
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