The ESA Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission flew past Earth and the Moon in August 2024, and this provided an opportunity to test the scientific instruments onboard the spacecraft. Here we show the measurements made by the Juice magnetometer, J-MAG, which measures the magnetic field in space. By comparing J-MAG observations with data from other spacecraft, we find that all parts of the instrument are working extremely well at this early stage in the mission.

We model the structure of the thermosphere for two space weather events that affected satellite orbits. Based on the Sun's irradiation, we simulate atmospheric density profiles and feed them into a model that calculates the influence of precipitating electrons on nitrogen oxide production in the atmosphere. Our results underscore the importance of considering both solar irradiance and particle precipitation to understand and predict space weather effects on the atmosphere and satellite orbits.

The paper discusses the accuracy of the scalar magnetometer on board the scientific satellite mission Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer of the European Space Agency. A novel method is described which utilises experiments, performed with a coil system in a geomagnetic observatory, and a mathematical data processing approach to separate the systematic errors of the coil system from the systematic error of the magnetometer. With this, the paper shows that the instrument’s accuracy is below 0.2 nT (1σ).

We present the implementation of a VLF/LF network to search for earthquake electromagnetic precursors. The proposed system will deliver a steady stream of real-time amplitude and phase measurements as well as a daily recording VLF/LF data set. The first implementation of the system was done in Graz, Austria. The second one will be in Guyancourt (France), with a third one in Réunion (France) and a fourth one in Moratuwa (Sri Lanka).