Mission Logos. HelioSwarm credit University of New Hampshire.

HelioSwarm is a NASA heliophysics mission that will launch a constellation of 9 spacecraft to investigate the fundamental properties of plasma turbulence.  The HelioSwarm spacecraft will fly in formation through the solar wind – the cloud of charged particles that flow from the Sun.   One central hub spacecraft will gather data from eight smaller node spacecraft, characterising collisionless plasma turbulence in 3 dimensions, on multiple scales, for the first time. 

Each spacecraft will fly a magnetometer (a magnetic field instrument) designed and built at Imperial College London and supported by the UK Space Agency.

 

More information about the mission is available at the NASA HelioSwarm homepage and at the Principal Investigator institution, the University of New Hampshire's HelioSwarm site. 

Imperial HelioSwarm team, Credit: Imperial

Facts

  • Launch Readiness date: 2029 
  • Orbit: Lunar resonance orbit around Earth (approximately 60 by 11 Earth radii) 
  • Mission Duration: nominal 1 year 
  • Imperial College involvement: Lead, magnetometer instrument (MAG) 
  • MAG: Fluxgate sensor; electronics box and power supply developed in the Space Magnetometer Laboratory 
  • Science Lead: Prof. Tim Horbury, Imperial College London 
  • Instrument Manager: Helen O'Brien, Imperial College London 
  • Funding Agency: UKSA 

Instrument Development page: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/space-and-atmospheric-physics/research/missions-and-projects/space-missions/helioswarm/instrument-development/  

External Links

UNH HelioSwarm | NASA HelioSwarm | UK Space Agency

 

Find out more

Instrument Development

The HelioSwarm MAG instruments take heritage from IMAP, Solar Orbiter and JUICE MAG instruments, optimised to provide a cost effective solution for nine spacecraft.