The European Space Agency (ESA) has just signed a contract with OpenCosmos to design, launch and commission the NanoMagSat constellation, marking the start of its realisation.
© OpenCosmos & NanoMagSat consortium
Benefiting from miniaturisation work initiated in France with the support of CNES, then definitively selected by ESA on 21 February 2024 as the Scout mission to explore the Earth, NanoMagSat is a project for a constellation of 3 satellites in low orbit. Designed as a follow-up to the Swarm mission, NanoMagSat aims to improve our understanding of the Earth’s magnetic field and ionospheric environment, in order to assess the potential dangers of magnetic events for space and terrestrial infrastructures, among other things.
To achieve this, the three satellites, each measuring 16U and weighing around 30kg, will be equipped with two magnetometers, two star cameras, a Langmuir probe and two GNSS receivers. The satellites will be deployed in three complementary orbits from the end of 2027 for a nominal operating period of 3 years.
At the second Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum on 27 November 2024 in Frankfurt, ESA signed a €34.6 million contract with OpenCosmos (UK and Spain), the prime contractor in a consortium of industrial and academic partners. The contract will finance the construction, launch and commissioning of NanoMagSat.
In addition to OpenCosmos, which will develop and operate the mission, the NanoMagSat consortium includes COMET-Aerospace in Spain, which will develop elements of the platform, CEA-Léti in France, the Technical University of Denmark and the University of Oslo in Norway, which will develop the payload, and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris at the Université Paris Cité in France, which will exploit and distribute the scientific data.
Read more: https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/ESA_awards_development_contract_for_NanoMagSat
https://www.open-cosmos.com/news/open-cosmos-signs-35meu-contract-with-esa-for-3-satellites-to-monitor-earths-magnetic-field