IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2015 - 48

D. SOLID EARTH
Evolution of Cyclone Thane on December 29, 2011

1) Measuring the earth
Magnetic field: swarM
Geometry
of
the
Cyclone
Swarm is one of the Earth
Altitude
300
India
Function of the Altitude
Explorer Missions run by the
280
Chennai
European Space Agency (ESA);
C1
Upper Atmosphere
260
its principal goal is to study the
240
spatio-temporal variations in
C2
220
the Earth's geomagnetic field
200
and ionosphere. It consists of
Sri Lanka
C3
a constellation of three iden180
1109-1110
1110-1111
1111-1112
tical satellites in near polar
160
C4
29.12 15H30 29.12 17H20 29.12 19H05
orbit, each satellite carrying
140
a Vector Field Magnetometer
C5
120
(VFM) and an Absolute Scalar
Magnetometer (ASM).
C6
CNES supplied the ASMs
developed by the Leti/CEA
laboratory (Commissariat
Ground
à l'Energie Atomique et aux
énergies alternatives).
Swarm was launched end
FIguRE 10. Thane Cyclone December 31 2011 Saphir Chanel 1 to 6, (credit: CNES).
of 2013. The three satellites
are operational despite the
unfortunate failure of the Absolute Scalar Magnetometers
on one satellite. The maximum ASM accuracy error after
all level 1b corrections is of 65 pT (1 v) [14].
One important achievement based mainly on Swarm
data is the twelfth generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) adopted in December
2014 by the Working Group V-MOD appointed by the
International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA) (Earth, Planets, Space dedicates a special issue
to this IGRF model).
1105-1107
29.12 10H

1107-1108
29.12 11H50

1108-1109
29.12 13H40

FIguRE 11. International Charter "Space and Major Disasters"

2013 flooding of Dresden (Germany) Crédits: DLR 2013.

(CO2) and methane (CH4) is of considerable importance in
the context of global and regional climate change.
MERLIN (MEthane Remote sensing LIdar missioN) [13]
is a climate mission developed in cooperation between
France and Germany. The primary objective is to obtain
spatial and temporal gradients of atmospheric methane
(CH4) columns with high precision on a global scale. Such
measurements are assimilated to map the sources and sinks
(or fluxes) of these gases. Germany is developing and building the methane LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) instrument, while France is providing the satellite platform
Myriade Evolutions and the mission control. The launch is
scheduled for 2019.
48

TB (K)

2) doris, the space surveyor
DORIS (Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite) was designed to help determine Earth's geodetic parameters, such as the center of
mass and surface movements. The precise positioning is
based on Doppler-shift measurements of radio frequency
signals transmitted by a ground-based, world-wide beacon network.
There are six DORIS instruments flying on-board different satellite missions including SPOT 5, Jason-2, Saral,
Cryosat (ESA Earth Explorer mission) and Pleiades. DORIS
will fly on future oceanographic altimetry missions such as
Jason 3 and Sentinel-3 in 2015, as well as SWOT and Sentinel-6 in 2020.
III. MISSION EXPLOITATION DATA VALORIZATION
One important concern for CNES is to facilitate and
stimulate the use of the huge amount of data generated
by European Earth Observation missions. A number of
actions are taken to achieve this: support to science use,
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june 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2015