Particle.news
Get it on Google Play
Download on the App Store
5 ARTICLES
·
3w ago

ESA–China SMILE Mission Cleared for Vega C Launch to Image Earth’s Magnetosphere

The mission offers the first global view of Earth’s magnetic shield in high‑energy light to explain how solar storms disrupt satellites and power grids.

Image
ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are jointly launching Smile in 2026 — the same heliophysics collaboration NASA has been statutorily barred from since the 2011 Wolf Amendment, and the gap reveals how much of 'Western space policy' is actually two incompatible policies
Europe launches a new mission to image Earth's magnetic shield in 2026 while the operational satellite warning of solar storms is a 1995 spacecraft running 28 years past retirement — the gap between discovery science and operational continuity within a single agency
A joint European-Chinese magnetosphere mission launches in 2026 — the same year Brussels closes most of its €93.5 billion Horizon Europe programme to Chinese institutions, and the carve-out reveals which knowledge Europe still classifies as 'merely curious'

Overview

  • The joint ESA–CAS SMILE spacecraft is slated to fly on a Vega C from Kourou after an April postponement triggered by a launcher subsystem production‑line issue, with Avio serving as launch operator for the first time.
  • SMILE will capture the first global soft X‑ray and ultraviolet images of the magnetosphere, revealing how the solar wind and coronal mass ejections buffet Earth’s protective field.
  • The 2,200‑kilogram spacecraft will enter a highly elliptical, high‑inclination orbit using about 90% of its propellant over a month to reach an apogee near 121,000 kilometers above the North Pole.
  • Once on station, the three‑year primary mission plans roughly 40 hours of magnetosphere imaging per two‑day orbit and up to 45‑hour continuous runs to track auroras, though it will not provide real‑time space‑weather alerts.
  • Key hardware includes a lobster‑eye soft X‑ray imager with large CCDs cooled to −120°C, a UV camera, and in‑situ ion and magnetic sensors, with ESA supplying the launch and payload module and CAS leading operations and three instruments; science data will flow through DLR’s O’Higgins station and China’s Sanya site.