Collaborative SMILE satellite heads for Europe integration

A China-Europe joint space mission, Solar Wind Magnetosphere lonosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), has successfully completed development and will be sent to Europe for integration, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sept. 27, 2024. (Photo/China News Service)

(ECNS) -- A China-Europe joint space mission, Solar Wind Magnetosphere lonosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), has successfully completed development and will be sent to Europe for integration, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Friday.

It marks the first China-Europe cooperation on space science exploration mission and the final research project of China's space science.

The SMILE satellite is set to explore the large-scale structures and fundamental patterns of solar wind-magnetosphere interactions, to understand the overall changes and periodic variations of magnetospheric substorms, and investigate the initiation and development of magnetic storms driven by coronal mass ejections.

The satellite has completed the development in China, including satellite testing, system interface testing and environmental experiments since January 2023.

The satellite platform and payload module are expected to arrive at the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC) in October 2024, where they will be integrated and tested together with the payload module developed by the European Space Agency. It will be shipped to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana in July 2025 and scheduled to launch on a Vega-C carrier rocket by the end of 2025.