On 22 November 2013, ESA's Swarm mission was launched, a trio of satellites that has been providing high-precision observation data of the Earth's magnetic field ever since. The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences played a leading role during the development of the mission. Today, within an international scientific consortium, Swarm DISC (Swarm Data, Innovation, and Science Cluster), the GFZ contributes to the regular provision of data products for geomagnetism and space weather obtained from the Swarm measurements.

The three identical satellites orbit the Earth in a special constellation: Swarm A and Swarm C fly as a pair of satellites at an altitude of 462 kilometres, Swarm B in a more distant orbit at an altitude of 510 kilometres. The final orbital constellation was reached in April 2014. Accordingly, the 10th anniversary of Swarm will be officially celebrated in April 2024 at a scientific conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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