14 DAY TRIAL // A problem in the Breeze upper stage of a Rockot delivery system has forced the European Space Agency and private contractor Eurockot to delay the launch of three ESA satellites.
The spacecraft were supposed to launch on November 14, but an unspecified component of the upper stage failed to pass the proper tests. The rocket will be launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in Russia, probably a week later than initially scheduled.
Swarm is the fourth of ESA's Earth Explorer mission and comes on the heels of the GOCE, SMOS and CryoSat satellites. Its purpose is to study Earth's magnetic field at a level of detail never before achieved by other spacecraft.
The three satellites making up Swarm will occupy three polar orbits, and will conduct multi-point measurements of our planet's geomagnetic field and of how it evolves over time.
These data will come in handy when researchers try to make sense of how charged particles from the Sun influence our atmosphere, and how the Earth's spinning, molten iron core protects us from solar storms.