How does an ice satellite detect a geomagnetic storm?

It seems improbable that a satellite designed to monitor polar ice sheets and floating sea ice could accurately measure a disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field. But that is just what ESA’s CryoSat mission did earlier this year.

This is a story of unique innovation in satellite technology. At the end of last year, the CryoSat mission, which has been operating for almost 16 years, was given a remote upgrade of new software for its platform magnetometer. This instrument is installed on the satellite to ensure it orbits at the right altitude and directs its science instruments towards the right part of Earth’s surface. The platform magnetometer is therefore an operational instrument and was not designed to produce scientific data about Earth’s magnetic environment.

In fact, CryoSat is known primarily as an ice mission. It carries an advanced radar instrument that measures small changes on the surface of ice sheets and sea ice, down to an accuracy of a few millimetres. As part of ESA’s Earth Explorer family of satellites, it has produced scientific datasets that give us insights into Earth’s polar oceans, subglacial lakes, as well as ice sheets.

The upgrade to its operational magnetometer means that CryoSat is now also able to measure changes in Earth’s magnetosphere with scientific precision, using data to calibrate its measurements from ESA’s dedicated magnetic field-observing Earth Explorer, Swarm. This newly acquired skill means there are now in effect two magnetometry missions in ESA’s Earth Explorer family. Swarm (and CryoSat) will be joined by another magnetic field-measuring Scout satellite, NanoMagSat, which is currently in development.

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Source:

European Space Agency. (2026, March 16). How does an ice satellite detect a geomagnetic storm? ESA Observing the Earth. https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/CryoSat/H…