SMILE, a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, now has a confirmed launch window of 8 April–7 May 2026. The project has entered the launch‑preparation phase after completing integration and test activities.
ESA confirms the spacecraft will fly on a Vega‑C from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The joint qualification and flight acceptance review concluded in October 2025 following a ten‑month campaign at ESA’s ESTEC; shipment to Kourou is planned for February 2026.
Mission design focuses on sustained, global imaging of how the solar wind drives changes at the magnetopause, bow shock and cusps, and how these changes map into the aurora. The payload comprises the Soft X‑ray Imager (SXI), an Ultraviolet Imager (UVI), a Light Ion Analyser and a magnetometer, flown in a highly elliptical Earth orbit with a multi‑year plan. The UK Government describes this as the first ‘3D’ global look at Earth’s magnetosphere.
UK leadership roles are confirmed by government: Dr Colin Forsyth (UCL–MSSL) serves as mission Co‑Principal Investigator alongside China’s Professor Chi Wang; Dr Steven Sembay (University of Leicester) is Principal Investigator for SXI, with UCL–MSSL delivering front‑end electronics and a co‑investigator role on the Light Ion Analyser, and Dr David Hall (Open University) leading CCD testing. UK Space Agency funding supports these roles through to the 2026 launch, with post‑launch support to be reviewed.
Industrial delivery is anchored in the UK. Teledyne e2v in Chelmsford is supplying the SXI CCD detector devices to ESA under a contract valued at around £1.5 million, supported by a knowledge‑exchange programme with the Open University to raise radiation tolerance. Photek Ltd is contracted to provide the microchannel‑plate image detector used in the UVI camera.
Data exploitation has been planned with the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre, which the UK Space Agency notes has already engaged with the SMILE team ahead of operations. MOSWOC is one of a small number of 24/7 space‑weather prediction centres and, through the National Space Operations Centre partnership, provides alerts and advice to government, critical national infrastructure and defence users.
Government guidance underscores why this matters. Severe space weather can disturb satellite navigation, degrade shortwave communications and induce currents in power networks. ESA estimates a single extreme event could cost Europe about €15 billion; better forecasts narrow avoidable disruption and support faster recovery decisions by operators.
The programme timeline is clear. SMILE was selected by ESA and CAS in 2015, formally adopted by ESA Member States in March 2019, and the SXI passed preliminary design in 2020 before delivery of the flight instrument to the payload module in June 2024. A joint qualification and flight acceptance review in October 2025 authorised launch preparations for the April–May 2026 window.
SXI’s technical approach uses micropore ‘lobster‑eye’ optics and a wide‑field focal plane to image soft X‑ray emission generated when solar‑wind ions exchange charge with neutral atoms, enabling simultaneous views of the bow shock, magnetopause and cusps. ESA notes the focal plane is based on Teledyne e2v’s PLATO‑heritage CCD270, adapted for radiation robustness and fast readout.
The mission arrives as the Met Office deploys an upper‑atmosphere modelling suite designed to translate observations into actionable outputs for aviation, GNSS‑dependent services and satellite operations. Combined with MOSWOC and NSpOC processes, SMILE data are positioned to support resilience planning once commissioning is complete.