The responsibilities of CNES and ESA with respect to the implementation of this mission are defined in a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) co-signed on October 16, 2008.

CNES is responsible for the:

development, space qualification, realization, tests and delivery of the absolute magnetometers;
support to the satellite project prime contractor (assistance during integration, supply of documentation associated with the magnetometers);
validation of level 1b data of the absolute magnetometers.

ESA is responsible for the:

development, tests, launch and exploitation of the 3 SWARM satellites;
accommodation of the magnetometers on SWARM satellites;
supply CNES with an access to all the SWARM data necessary to validate the data of the magnetometers and in particular the data of the vector mode;
SWARM data distribution.

Between CNES and LETI: the development of the magnetometers carried out at Leti (2 engineering models, 1 EQM enabling a pre-qualifaction, a proto-flight model and 6 flight models) is covered by a contract between CNES and LETI.

Lastly, the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, under the control of the principal investigator of this project, G. Hulot, ensures the scientific expertise on the magnetometers and will be in charge of the scientific validation of the magnetometers data. This work will benefit all the scientific community working on the SWARM data.