The SMILE mission, a collaborative effort between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), successfully launched on May 19, 2026, aboard the European Vega-C rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.
The launch occurred at 05:52 Italian time (00:52 local time), following a few weeks of postponement from its original April 9th date. This delay was due to a technical issue identified in a subsystem component, which has since been resolved.
Approximately 57 minutes into its flight, the satellite was successfully deployed into low Earth orbit. In the coming days, SMILE will undertake a series of autonomous maneuvers to reach its final scientific orbit. This highly elliptical orbit will carry the probe as far as 121,000 km above Earth’s North Pole and approximately 5,000 km above the South Pole. This unique orbit will enable it to conduct large-scale observations of the regions where solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.
The Vega-C mission, designated VV29, marked the first mission entirely operated by Avio, following the transfer of responsibility from Arianespace completed in 2025.
An Observatory to Understand Earth’s Response to the Sun
SMILE, an acronym for Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, is designed to study how our planet reacts to the flows of charged particles originating from the Sun. When solar wind impacts Earth’s magnetosphere, complex phenomena are generated, which can lead to geomagnetic storms and intense polar auroras.
To analyze these events, the mission utilizes four primary scientific instruments. Among these is an X-ray imager capable of capturing the first global images of Earth’s magnetosphere in this wavelength. This instrument leverages a phenomenon known as “charge exchange,” where certain solar wind particles emit X-rays upon interacting with atoms in the outer regions of Earth’s atmosphere.
In addition to its X-ray observations, SMILE also employs a UV imager dedicated to continuous monitoring of both the Northern and Southern Lights (auroras). This instrument will be able to track their evolution for over 45 consecutive hours. The collected data will be integrated with measurements of magnetic fields and energetic particles taken directly by the probe.
The mission’s objective is to gain a deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms governing energy transfer from the Sun to Earth. This information will be valuable not only for fundamental scientific research but also for improving space weather prediction models.
