The Swedish Institute of Space Physics ( sv, Institutet för rymdfysik, IRF) is a

Swedish government agency The government agencies in Sweden are state-controlled organizations that act independently to carry out the policies of the Government of Sweden. The ministries are relatively small and merely policy-making organizations, allowed to monitor the ...

. The institute's primary task is to carry out basic research, education and associated observatory activities in space physics, space technology and atmospheric physics.

Foundation

The IRF was founded in 1957 and the first Kiruna-designed satellite experiment was launched in 1968. The institute has about one hundred employees and has its head office in

Kiruna (; se, Giron ; fi, Kiiruna ) is the northernmost city in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality (population: 23,167 in 2016) in Norrbotten County. The city was ...

. Other offices are situated in

Umeå Umeå ( , , , locally ; South Westrobothnian: ;). fi, Uumaja; sju, Ubmeje; sma, Upmeje; se, Ubmi) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. Situated on the Ume River, Um ...

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the ca ...

and Lund. IRF, originally the Kiruna Geophysical Observatory, began as a department within the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It has been a public research institute since 1973, under the auspices of the Swedish Ministry of Education and Culture.

Satellite experiments

IRF participates in several international satellite projects. At present, data from satellite instruments are being analysed to help us better comprehend the plasma-physical processes in the solar wind and around

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

s and

planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...

s. For example, the Swedish

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

and Freja satellites, with equipment from IRF on board, have greatly increased our knowledge of the auroral processes in the Earth’s magnetosphere, as have the microsatellites Astrid 1 and 2, launched in 1995 and 1998. IRF's own nano-satellite Munin (at 6 kg (13 lb) the smallest-ever research satellite) was launched in 2000. An IRF-built instrument on board the Indian satellite Chandrayaan-1 (launched 2008) collected data from the moon and new techniques for making particle measurements in space were tested on the Swedish satellite mission Prisma (launched 2010). IRF has instruments on board for example the following on-going satellite projects: *

Cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study th ...

(2000) is an ESA project with 4 satellites in formation to study the Earth's

magnetosphere In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field. It is created by a celestial body with an active interior d ...

. * Mars Express (2003) is an ESA mission to study Mars. * Swarm (2013) is an ESA project with 3 satellites to study the

Earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magneti ...

. * BepiColombo (2018), a combined JAXA/

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

mission to Mercury. *Solar Orbiter (2020) is an ESA mission to study the solar wind and the Sun. Forthcoming satellite missions: * JUICE (to be launched in 2022), a

mission to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

and its icy moons. Completed missions: * Cassini (launched 1997), a combined

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

/ESA (

) mission to Saturn and its moon Titan. *

Rosetta Rosetta or Rashid (; ar, رشيد ' ; french: Rosette ; cop, ϯⲣⲁϣⲓⲧ ''ti-Rashit'', Ancient Greek: Βολβιτίνη ''Bolbitinē'') is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The R ...

(2004) is one of ESA's cornerstone projects and has been studying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since 2014. The mission is due to end in late September 2016. * Venus Express (2005) is an ESA satellite to study

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

and completed its mission in December 2014. ''
RF in space 1968 ->
''

Continuous measurements

Continuous measurements of the following are made at IRF *the magnetic field of the Earth *aurora *cosmic radio noise *ionospheric parameters

Ground-based auroral research

Experiments are conducted with research radars, such as those of the European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) with transmitters in

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies in Northern Norway. The municipality is the ...

and on

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group rang ...

. These are used for example to study the processes which cause the aurora. The three-dimensional structure of the aurora is studied with ALIS (Auroral Large Imaging System), a multi-station imaging system which uses

tomographic reconstruction Tomographic reconstruction is a type of multidimensional inverse problem where the challenge is to yield an estimate of a specific system from a finite number of projections. The mathematical basis for tomographic imaging was laid down by Johann ...

techniques, artificial intelligence and advanced IT.

Atmospheric research

Atmospheric research at IRF focuses on studies of *

ozone Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , breaking down in the l ...

in the stratosphere *strato- and mesospheric clouds *strato- and mesospheric winds *coupling between different atmospheric layers (e.g. transport between troposphere and stratosphere) - propagation of mechanical waves Radar, optical methods, sounding rockets and balloons are used for atmospheric studies. Continuous measurements are made of: *atmospheric trace gases (including ozone) *atmospheric winds *infrasonic waves.

IRF SpaceLab

The IRF SpaceLab test facility at IRF in Kiruna, Sweden, offers industry and research groups an extensive opportunity to test and qualify space-related hardware for satellites, rockets, balloons and ground-based technology. IRF has been developing instruments for satellites, rockets and balloons since the 1960s and has all the necessary equipment to simulate the harsh environment these instruments face.
IRF SpaceLab

External links

Swedish Institute of Space Physics
- Official site
IRF SpaceLab
{{authority control Institute of Space Physics Research institutes in Sweden Kiruna Buildings and structures in Norrbotten County