The Space Magnetometer Lab ground calibration facilities for magnetometers are located at the site of Ultra Electronics site in Staffordshire.

3 axis Helmholtz Coil System capabilities

The magnetometer under test is placed in the centre of the coil system, we can test the following:

• measure instrument bandwidth by compensating for the Earth's field, and then applying a field of up to +/-25 microtesla field at frequencies up to 100Hz on all three axes
• measure instrument linearity in the range +/- 60 microtesla
• measure instrument scale factor to better than 0.01%
• measure instrument alignment to better than 0.1 degree
• measure how the following change with temperature over the range -50C to +125C
  - instrument offset
  - instrument noise
  - insturment scale factor

Stable, low-field environment

The magnetometer under test is placed in a mu-metal can to provide a low field environment, this can is then placed at the bottom of a 2m pit to ensure a stable temperature.  This allows measurement of:

• instrument offset drift over a period of hours to days
• instrument noise