A China-Europe joint space mission, Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), has successfully carried out an extension test of its payload magnetometer in Europe, Science and Technology Daily reported Wednesday.

The test shows that the function and performance of the magnetometer subsystem integrated with the payload module meet the mission requirements and that the researchers from China and Europe agree on the development specifications, technical process, test methods and evaluation standards. 

The magnetometer is a set of high-precision detection equipment of the space vector magnetic field. It is used to detect the three-dimensional vector of the space magnetic field and obtain the detection data on the size and direction of the solar wind magnetic field. 

The magnetometer arrived at the European Space Research and Technology Center of the European Space Agency (ESA) last month for a thermal vacuum test, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). 

The SMILE mission is a collaboration between CAS and ESA. The magnetometer of the mission was developed by the State Key Laboratory of Space Weather under the CAS National Space Science Center. 

It has been reported that the mission expects to send satellites into space before the end of 2024.