- 1Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas UMR 7648, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Université Paris-Saclay, Observatoire de Paris, Paris, France (olivier.lecontel@lpp.polytechnique.fr)
- 2LPC2E, UMR7328, CNRS, Université d’Orléans, CNES, Orléans, France
- 3GEEPS, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris-Saclay, Centrale-Supélec, Paris, France
- 4DT-INSU, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- 5CNES, France
- 6Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala, Sweden
- 7INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome, Italy
The proposal of the Plasma Observatory mission was selected for a competitive phase A with two other missions in the framework of the seventh call for medium mission (M7) organized by ESA. The mission selection is planned in 2026 for a launch in 2037. Its main objectives are to unveil how are particles energized in space plasma and which processes dominate energy transport and drive coupling between the different regions of the terrestrial magnetospheric system? The mission consists of seven satellites, a main platform (mothercraft, MSC) and six smaller identical satellites (daughtercraft) evolving along an equatorial elliptical orbit with an apogee ~17 and a perigee ~8 Earth radii. The seven satellites will fly forming two tetraedra and allowing simultaneous measurements at both fluid and ion scales. The mission will include three key science regions: dayside (solar wind, bow shock, magnetosheath, magnetopause), nightside transition region (quasidipolar region, transient near-Earth current sheet, field-aligned currents, braking flow region) and the medium magnetotail (near-Earth reconnection region, fast flow formation region). Plasma Observatory mission is the next logical step after the four satellite magnetospheric missions Cluster and MMS. The search-coil magnetometer (SCM), strongly inherited of the SCM designed for the ESA JUICE mission, is only included in the Fields instrument suite of the MSC. SCM will be delivered by LPP and LPC2E and will provide the three components of the magnetic field fluctuations in the [0.1Hz-8kHz] frequency range, after digitization by the Low frequency Receiver (LFR) within the Field and Wave Processor (FWP), relevant for the three Key science regions. It will be mounted on a 6m boom and will allow to reach the following sensitivities [10-3, 1.5x10-6, 5x10-9, 10-10, 5x10-10] nT2/Hz at [1, 10, 100, 1000, 8000] Hz. Associated with the electric field instrument (EFI), SCM will allow to fully characterize the wave polarization and estimate the direction of propagation of the wave energy. These measurements are crucial to understand the role of electromagnetic waves in the energy conversion processes, the plasma and energy transport, the acceleration and the heating of the plasma.
How to cite: Le Contel, O., Kretzschmar, M., Retino, A., Mehrez, F., Jannet, G., Alison, D., Revillet, C., Mirioni, L., Agrapart, C., Sou, G., Geyskens, N., Berthod, C., Chust, T., Berthomier, M., Fiachetti, C., Khotyaintsev, Y., Cripps, V., and Marcucci, M. F.: The SCM instrument for the ESA Plasma Observatory mission, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16777, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16777, 2025.