Tag: SMILE

  • ESA-China SMILE Mission Launches to Map Earth’s Magnetosphere

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    How Will SMILE Transform Space Weather Monitoring? The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission launched successfully from Kourou, French Guiana today, marking the culmination of over a decade of ESA-China collaboration. The 2,300-kilogram spacecraft will operate from a highly elliptical orbit (HEO) with a 19.6-hour period, reaching distances of 121,000 kilometers to capture…

  • Vega C launches SMILE to study Earth’s magnetosphere

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    The European Space Agency’s (ESA) latest science mission, Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), launched on a four-stage Vega C rocket from French Guiana on Tuesday morning. SMILE, a collaboration between ESA, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and multiple academic and commercial organizations, will capture the first global soft X-ray images of Earth’s…

  • ESA reveals candidates for new space science missions

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    Earth’s protective barrier – the magnetosphere – shields it from some of the effects of the supersonic solar wind. Studying the interaction between this wind and the magnetosphere is important for our understanding of space weather. Credit: ESA The European Space Agency revealed plans Thursday to build and launch a joint space weather research satellite…