Magnetometer for measuring planetary magnetic fields

The investigation of the magnetism of the Solar system planets is became one of the important issues for understanding their evolution and history. This has special relevance at Mars after the NASA MGS mission unexpectedly detected higher crustal magnetic anomalies than those existing on Earth. The mass, power and volume are important factors when designing planetary magnetometers. However, the performance must not be compromised. The DTU magnetometer consisting of a triaxial fluxgate sensor and controlling electronics is a miniaturized version of the instruments flown on the Oersted, Astrid-2, CHAMP and SAC-C missions. It can produce vector measurements at a rate of 50 Hz and with a precision of more than 21 bits. The thermal and long term stability of the instrument is less than 0.5 nT. The power consumption of the instrument is less than 0.5W for continuous operation. For an orbiting satellite, the instrument (including hardness) weights less than 1 kg and the electronics unit (featuring redundancy) of the instrument and the sensor has dimensions of 100x100x40 mm and 54x46x33 mm. For a lander, station and/or aerial platform, the instrument can be delivered for direct assembly in a board. In this case the weight is less than 0.25 kg. And the electronics unit and the sensor have dimensions of 100x70x12 mm and 45x28x30 mm, respectively. In order to determine the orientation of the magnetometer, a star tracker providing high precision attitude can be used for an orbiting satellite. For lander, station and/or aerial platform, a gravity-solar sensor can be used.