China-Europe SMILE mission launched to study space weather

Congratulations! Let’s SMILE! ️Huge congratulations to all the scientists and engineers from China and Europe!

The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) satellite, a joint mission between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the European Space Agency (ESA), was successfully launched aboard a Vega-C rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, on May 19. SMILE is set to study the interactions between Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind. 

Chinese and European scientists have installed 4 scientific payloads on the SMILE satellite, which will give scientists an entirely new perspective on how our planet’s magnetic shield reacts to the solar wind. 

This represents a flagship collaboration between China and Europe. Besides SMILE, China and Europe have forged a continuous partnership in space exploration. Notable collaborations include the 2024 launch of the SVOM satellite with France to study Gamma-Ray Bursts, China’s Chang’e-6 mission that carried payloads from ESA, as well as France, and Italy, while lunar samples from Chinese missions have been shared with the European scientific community. More scientific cooperation can be expected in the future deep space missions.