ESA–China's Smile Probe Begins Hunting Space Weather

A joint European-Chinese spacecraft has cleared commissioning and is now mapping how solar wind reshapes Earth's magnetic shield.

By The space-quantum Desk

On 23 September, the Smile mission — a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) — was declared ready for science operations, following a busy in-space commissioning period since its 19 May launch [1]. The spacecraft is using its four instruments to study how Earth responds to the solar wind from the Sun.

UVI is now recording the auroras for a record-breaking 45 hours at a time [1].

Smile's soft X-ray imager (SXI) faces a current challenge: when pointed towards Earth it currently detects too much unwanted (stray) light [1]. Specific settings and software updates are currently being changed and implemented onboard, and the instrument's versatile design allows settings to be adjusted remotely [1]. Stray light is expected to reach a minimum in mid-October, at which point SXI should capture its first clean image of the magnetopause or the northern polar cusp [1].

Space weather sits at the intersection of science and infrastructure — auroras are beautiful until they're not, until grids flicker and satellites lose lock. A mission that watches the Sun's breath in real time changes what forecasters can actually do with a warning.

The full dataset will land in the hands of scientists worldwide once calibration is complete.

Smile is now approved to begin science operations. This is a very important milestone – a true pleasure to announce – and I am sure our excellent collaboration will deliver ground-breaking data to scientists around the world.Carole Mundell