Europe-China SMILE Science Mission Tracks Solar Storms around Planet Earth

Europe-China SMILE Science Mission Tracks Solar Storms around Planet Earth

🛰️📡For the first time, we are able to capture a global view of how the solar wind interacts with the Earth’s magnetosphere. How do we track a solar storm for 40 hours? From a highly elliptical orbit above the polar region, SMILE studies where the solar wind meets Earth's magnetic field. This provides a fuller picture of the effects of space weather.

Scientific questions being examined include:
How does the solar wind reshape our magnetic shield?
What triggers auroral substorms?
How do solar eruptions spark geomagnetic storms?

The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is an international space science mission designed to investigate how the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetosphere. By observing these dynamic processes from space, SMILE will help scientists better understand space weather and its effects on our planet's magnetic environment.

The European Space Agency (ESA) was 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 contributed to a second science instrument (the ultraviolet imager, UVI) and the mission operations once SMILE is in orbit.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences provided the other three science instruments and the spacecraft platform, and is responsible for operating the spacecraft in orbit.

Video Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Duration: 1 minute, 35 seconds
Date: June 12, 2026

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