China-Europe SMILE mission begins operations with first aurora images

The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), a joint China-Europe satellite mission, has passed its in-orbit test review and entered the scientific operation phase, according to the National Space Science Center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

SMILE will give scientists the first panoramic imaging of how the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetosphere – the process that drives space weather, which can disrupt satellites, power grids and communications. 

China and Europe released the first batch of images and data from the mission's four instruments on Wednesday. They include the first uninterrupted panoramic images of northern-hemisphere auroras obtained by the Ultraviolet Imager, a supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud captured by the Soft X-ray Imager, and the first high-resolution in-orbit data from very high Earth orbits recorded by the Magnetometer and the Low-Energy Ion Analyzer.

SMILE launched on May 19, 2026, from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and reached its observation orbit on June 20, with a perigee of 5,120 km and an apogee of 120,900 km. In-orbit tests showed all mission units working normally, and the CAS team completed all payload operations independently. 

Jointly developed by CAS and the European Space Agency, SMILE is the concluding mission of the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program in Space Science (Phase II). It follows the Double Star mission of 2003, and both sides called it a new milestone in mission-level cooperation.

The mission is expected to give space physics a new observational perspective, and to help forecast and mitigate space weather hazards.