Magnetic properties of CHAMP and their effects on in-orbit calibration

Abstract. CHAMP has so far been the most successful magnetic field mission. For achieving that, special effort had to be invested in building a magnetically clean spacecraft. The magnetic moment of the spacecraft is about 1 Am². In this article we introduce a new method that allows the determination of the magnetic moment during the mission from the average current strength of the magneto-torquers. In order to achieve precise field vector data, the readings of the fluxgate magnetometer are routinely calibrated against the absolute Overhauser measurements. A reanalysis of all the magnetic field data is performed which takes also into account small disturbances from the power system. Uncertainties of the final magnetic field data are estimated to be of the order of 0.1 nT.