Iridium Communications Satellite Constellation Data for Study of Earth's
Magnetic Field
Abstract
Characterization of Earth’s magnetic field is key to understanding the
dynamics of core flows and the dynamo. Satellite measurements of the
magnetic field normally use precise magnetometers on a few spacecraft to
acquire data over the entire globe over periods of months to years. The
advent of commercial satellite constellations of tens to hundreds of
satellites may offer complementary observations, even with low-precision
magnetometers, providing rapid global coverage. Here we assess whether
the magnetic field data from the Iridium Communications constellation of
66 low Earth orbiting satellites can be used to determine the geometry
of Earth’s main field. The Iridium satellites are in near polar, 86°
inclination, 780 km altitude, circular orbits, with 11 satellites in
each of six orbit planes evenly spaced in longitude. We use data from
the first-generation Iridium satellites, launched in the late 1990s, and
acquired for scientific analysis beginning in January 2010. Although
digitized with 30 nT resolution, the uncertainties in the data are
random errors so that the statistics of 300,000 samples/day allow
determination of the average magnetic field in 9° latitude by 9°
longitude bins to about 3 nT. The data reduction, inter-calibration,
quiet interval selection, and uncertainty assessment are described. Time
series of spherical harmonic coefficients are used to identify artifacts
and derive maps of corrected residuals at the average Iridium orbit
altitude. From 2010 to 2015 the evolution of the field agrees on average
between Iridium and the CHAOS 7.4 model to within 30 nT standard
deviation, or ~5 nT/yr.