Europe And China To Launch SMILE Space Mission To Shield Global Economy

This marks the first space mission ever fully jointly designed, built, launched, and operated by ESA and China.

The 2,300 kg satellite will orbit up to 121,000 km above Earth to study how solar wind interacts with the planet’s magnetosphere the invisible shield that protects life on Earth. The findings will have major implications for safeguarding satellites, GPS systems, power grids, financial networks, and global communications from space weather disruptions.

SMILE has been nearly a decade in the making. Selected in 2015 from 13 proposals under a joint ESA–CAS call, the mission began development in 2016 and has since endured technical setbacks, COVID delays, export control issues and growing geopolitical tensions. Its launch in 2026 is itself a significant milestone.

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Scientifically, SMILE will provide the first comprehensive, simultaneous view of how Earth’s magnetosphere responds to solar activity. It carries four instruments a soft X-ray imager, ultraviolet aurora imager, light ion analyser, and magnetometer working together during up to 40 hours per orbit of observation.

The mission is a collaboration between ESA (with Airbus in Spain building the payload module) and CAS (responsible for the service module and three instruments), involving over 250 scientists across Europe and China.

Beyond science, SMILE addresses a critical global risk space weather. Geomagnetic storms triggered by solar activity can disrupt satellites, collapse power grids and impact global financial systems. Historical events like the 1989 Quebec blackout highlight the real-world consequences, while a major solar storm today could cause trillions in economic losses.

Although SMILE will not prevent such events it will significantly improve forecasting capabilities enabling earlier warnings and better protection for critical infrastructure. In the future, AI-driven analysis of space weather data could make solar storm prediction as routine as weather forecasting.

The mission also represents a rare example of deep international cooperation in space science. It is the first ESA–China mission fully designed, launched and operated jointly, despite a complex geopolitical environment.