Europe-China SMILE Solar Science Mission: Protecting Earth from Space Weather
European Space Agency and Chinese Academy of Sciences teams working on the SMILE Mission
On March 20, 2026, specialists filled the European-Chinese Smile mission with fuel ahead of its launch on a Vega-C rocket on April 9, 2026.
SMILE has four fuel tanks, making the bulbous shape underneath the solar panels. Each tank carries 380 liters of hydrazine fuel and oxidiser that will feed an engine that can deliver 490 Newtons of thrust. The total weight of the spacecraft is 2300 kg, including 1580 kg of fuel.
SMILE will use 90% of this fuel during its first month in space. After the Vega-C rocket drops it off in a circular orbit 700 km above Earth’s surface, SMILE will fire its engines 11 times in 25 days.
These engine burns will gradually elongate SMILE’s orbit. Ultimately it will reach 121 000 km above the North Pole to collect information on how Earth’s magnetic field is reacting to the stream of charged particles from the Sun, before coming down to 5000 km above the South Pole to deliver this valuable data to a waiting ground station. Each orbit will take around two days.
SMILE spacecraft unboxed at Europe's spaceport in French Guiana
Following a two-week journey from the Netherlands, the Maritime Nantaise Colibri cargo ship carrying the SMILE spacecraft docked in Kourou, French Guiana on Thursday, February 26, 2026.
SMILE was then unloaded, transported to Europe's Spaceport, and then unpacked. During the coming weeks, the spacecraft will go through final preparations for its launch on a Vega-C rocket between April 8 and May 7.
In June 2025, the SMILE spacecraft was put into the Large Space Simulator—Europe’s largest vacuum chamber. This massive machine recreates the extreme vacuum and tough temperatures of outer space. It even includes a Sun simulation to imitate how a spacecraft will experience super-hot temperatures on its Sun-facing side, and super-cold temperatures on its shaded side.
It was the final, and possibly most complicated, part of SMILE’s spacecraft environment testing phase. It put the mission through its paces to make sure that it was ready for the difficult conditions in space. SMILE passed all its tests.
The SMILE spacecraft with its four scientific instruments
From its vantage point, SMILE will observe the solar wind interaction with the magnetosphere, gathering simultaneous images and video of the dayside magnetopause (where Earth's magnetosphere meets the solar wind, indicated in pink), the polar cusps (a region in each hemisphere where particles from the solar wind have direct access to Earth's ionosphere, indicated in green), and the auroral oval (the region around each geomagnetic pole where auroras most often occur).
SMILE will reveal how Earth's magnetic field reacts to the streams of particles and bursts of energy that the Sun constantly throws in our direction. It will give humankind its first complete look at how the solar wind leads to geomagnetic storms and auroras.
The magnetosphere that surrounds Earth is invisible to our eyes, but with its X-ray camera, SMILE will reveal this shield that protects us from the Sun. With its UV camera, it will watch the northern lights for 44 hours at a time to further understand Earth's response to solar storms.
The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
SMILE will use four science instruments to study how Earth responds to the solar wind from the Sun. In doing so, SMILE will improve our understanding of solar storms, geomagnetic storms, and the science of space weather. This groundbreaking mission will observe Earth’s magnetosphere in X-rays while capturing the northern lights in ultraviolet, offering an entirely new way to see how our planet defends itself from solar storms.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is responsible for providing SMILE’s payload module (carrying three of the four science instruments), one of the spacecraft’s four science instruments (the soft X-ray imager, SXI), the launcher, and the Assembly Integration and Testing facilities and services. ESA contributes to a second science instrument (the ultraviolet imager, UVI) and the mission operations once SMILE is in orbit.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences provides the other three science instruments and the spacecraft platform, and is responsible for operating the spacecraft in orbit.
SMILE is part of ESA's Cosmic Vision program, principally contributing to answering the question ‘How does the Solar System work?’
SMILE will launch aboard a Vega-C rocket on April 9, 2026.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Release Date: March 30, 2026
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