China-Europe partnership targets space weather in landmark joint mission

China and Europe in a rare collaboration are launching a joint space mission, aiming to observe space weather and study the role of Earth’s magnetic field in protecting the planet from dangerous solar radiation.

Under this historic cooperation, a Vega-C rocket is set to launch the 2.3 tonne satellite called Smile on Thursday, blasting off from the European spaceport into a highly elliptical orbit.

The satellite will be launched as far as 121,000km above the North Pole. The project is designed to understand how solar activities generate space weather and to analyse geomagnetic storms, responsible for disrupting the Earth-bound communication networks.

The mission dates back to 2016 when the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and European Space Agency (ESA) agreed to launch this mission. However, it was delayed by a year due to logistical hurdles driven by the restrictions placed over the export of sensitive technology, technical issues, and safety regulations.

Logistical challenges ranged from high-level trade restrictions to granular safety issues; for instance, the inclusion of ammonia in the spacecraft's heat pipes triggered "dangerous goods" classifications, further complicating transit.

Smile: A significant addition to space missions

Smile is equipped with four scientific instruments, including a soft X-ray imager, which is responsible for mapping the boundaries of the magnetosphere for the very first time.

Moreover, Smile’s UV imager can also assess the northern lights aurora over the North pole for 45 hours without any pause.

Colin Forsyth, a space scientist at University College London working on Smile, said, “We will be able to see how our magnetic bubble changes its shape, whether it does this smoothly or in steps, and how it gets squeezed down as eruptions from the Sun pass Earth. We have never done anything like this before.”

The satellite will also help the researchers to forecast geomagnetic storms more quickly and accurately.