Space weather describes the state and variations of the Earth’s natural space environment that can adversely affect humankind and its infrastructure in space and on ground. One of the foremost aims of space situational awareness (SSA) is to provide rapid space weather services to society and industry. ESA’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme develops a system to monitor and predict space weather and to disseminate information and alerts. Continuous monitoring of the space environment including fast processing of observations is the crucial prerequisite to any space weather activities.

ESA’s Swarm satellite constellation mission provides key observables of space weather such as precise magnetic field variations, ionospheric plasma drift, electron density, thermospheric density, GPS-derived total electron content, and ionospheric currents and irregularities. This project evaluates the space weather capabilities of the Swarm mission and is of highest relevance for other, as well as future LEO missions with similar instrumentation.