Swarm mission team in training
EU–(ENEWSPF)–19 November 2013. After months of intensive training, the Swarm mission control team are ready for liftoff on Friday. The team will carefully shepherd the trio of magnetic explorers through their critical launch and early orbit phase, ready to react to any problem.
The data from this new mission, planned to last four years, will be used to study the mysteries of Earth’s magnetic field, its interactions with the solar wind and relation to global change.
At 12:02 GMT on 22 November, a Rockot launcher will climb into the sky, soaring high above Plesetsk, Russia, 800 km north of Moscow. Some 91 minutes later, the Swarm trio will be released into orbit at 490 km.
That moment will mark the culmination of years of careful preparation capped by months of intensive training at ESOC, ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
Working at consoles in the Main Control Room, the Swarm team will be waiting tensely as the satellites perform their automated sequence and then come to life, beaming their first signals back to the engineers via ground stations in Sweden and Norway.
