SMILE (spacecraft) explained

Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer
Mission Type:Magnetospheric mission
Operator:ESA-CAS
Mission Duration:3 years (nominal)
Manufacturer:Airbus (payload module)
Launch Mass:2200 kg
Dry Mass:708 kg
Power:850 W
Launch Date:Q4 2025 (planned)[1]
Launch Rocket:Vega-C
Launch Site:Kourou
Launch Contractor:Arianespace
Orbit Reference:Geocentric
Orbit Regime:Highly elliptical orbit
Orbit Periapsis:5,000 km
Orbit Apoapsis:121,182 km
Orbit Inclination:° or °
Apsis:gee
Insignia:SMILE insignia.png
Insignia Caption:Official insignia for the SMILE mission
Insignia Alt:SMILE mission logo
Insignia Size:90x90px
Programme:Cosmic Vision
Previous Mission:JUICE
Next Mission:PLATO

Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is a planned joint venture mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. SMILE will image for the first time the magnetosphere of the Sun in soft X-rays and UV during up to 40 hours per orbit, improving our understanding of the dynamic interaction between the solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere.[2] [3] The prime science questions of the SMILE mission are

As of April 2024, SMILE is expected to launch in late 2025.

Overview

The mission will observe the solar wind interaction with the magnetosphere with its X-ray and ultraviolet cameras (SXI and UVI), gathering simultaneous images and videos of the dayside magnetopause (where Earth's magnetosphere meets the solar wind), the polar cusps (a region in each hemisphere where particles from the solar wind have direct access to Earth's ionosphere), and the auroral oval (the region around each geomagnetic pole where auroras most often occur). SMILE will also gather simultaneously in situ measurements with its two other instruments making up its payload – an ion analyser (LIA) and a magnetometer (MAG). These instruments will monitor the ions in the solar wind, magnetosheath and magnetosphere while detecting changes in the local DC magnetic field.

SMILE must reach a high enough altitude to view the outside edge of Earth's magnetopause and at the same time obtain good spatial resolution of the auroral oval. The chosen orbit is therefore highly elliptical and highly inclined (70 or 98 degrees depending on the launcher), and takes SMILE a third of the way to the Moon at apogee (an altitude of 121 182 km, i.e. 19 Earth radii or RE). This type of orbit enables SMILE to spend much of its time (about 80%, equivalent to nine months of the year) at high altitude, allowing the spacecraft to collect continuous observations for the first time during more than 40h. This orbit also limits the time spent in the high-radiation Van Allen belts, and in the two toroidal belts. SMILE will be injected into a low Earth orbit by a Vega-C launch vehicle from Kourou, French Guiana, and its propulsion module will bring the spacecraft to the nominal orbit with perigee altitude of around 5000 km.[4]

The SMILE spacecraft consists of a platform provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) attached to a payload module containing nearly all of the scientific instruments and an X-band communications system, provided by ESA. The payload module will be built by Airbus.[5] The platform is composed of a propulsion and a service module, together with the two detectors (or heads) of the ion instrument. The Mission Operations Center will be run by CAS; both organizations will jointly operate the Science Operations Center.

Instruments

Key instruments on board the spacecraft will include:

Working groups

Several working groups have been set up to help preparing the SMILE mission including

In-situ science working group

SMILE in-situ science working group is established to support the SMILE Team in ensuring that the mission science objectives are achieved and optimized, and in adding value to SMILE science. The in-situ SWG activity is centred on optimizing the design, the operations, calibrations planning, identifying the science objectives and opportunities of the in situ instrument package, including conjunctions with other magnetospheric space missions.

Modeling working group

The SMILE modeling working group provides the following modeling supports for the upcoming SMILE mission

1. Grand modeling challenge: MHD model comparison and SXI requirements/goals-

2. Boundary tracing from SXI data

3. Other science projects

Ground-based and additional science working group

The SMILE Ground-based and Additional Science Working Group coordinates support for the mission in the solar-terrestrial physics community. Their aim is to maximise the uptake of SMILE data, and therefore maximise the science output of the mission. They will coordinate future observing campaigns with other experimental facilities, both on the ground and in space, for example by using high resolution modes for Super Dual Auroral Radar Network facilities, or with EISCAT 3D, and correlating with data from other missions flying at the time. The working group is also developing a set of tools and a visualisation facility to combine data from SMILE and supporting experiments.

The Outreach working group

The SMILE Outreach working group aims to promote SMILE and its science among the general public, amateur science societies and school pupils of any age. Members of the group are active in giving presentations illustrating the science which SMILE will produce and the impact it will have on our knowledge of solar-terrestrial interactions. They generate contacts with organisations promoting science in primary and secondary schools, particularly in socio-economical deprived areas, hold hands-on workshops and promote careers in science. The group is focusing on SMILE as a practical example of how space projects are developed, and encouraging pupils to follow its progress to launch and beyond. It also promotes international exchanges, a good example of which is the translation of the book 'Aurora and Spotty' for children (and maybe for some adults too), originally in Spanish, into Chinese.

Result highlights

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

Awards

2020

History

Following the success of the Double Star mission, the ESA and CAS decided to jointly select, design, implement, launch and exploit the results of a space mission together for the first time. After initial workshops, a call for proposals was announced in January 2015. After a joint peer review of mission proposals, SMILE was selected as the top candidate out of 13 proposed.[21] The SMILE mission proposal[22] was jointly led by the University College London and the Chinese National Space Science Center. From June to November 2015, the mission entered initial studies for concept readiness, and final approval was given for the mission by the ESA Science Programme Committee in November 2015. A Request For Information (RFI) on provisions for the payload module was announced on 18 December 2015. The objective was to collect information from potential providers to assess low risk payload module requirements given stated interest in the mission, in preparation for the Invitation to Tender in 2016.[23] The Mission System Requirements Review was completed in October 2018, and ESA Mission Adoption by the Science Programme Committee was granted in March 2019.[24] SMILE successfully completed the Spacecraft and Mission Critical Design Review (CDR) in June 2023 in Shanghai.[25]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Smiles all round: Vega-C to launch ESA solar wind mission . . 30 April 2024 . 27 June 2024.
  2. Branduardi-Raymont. G.. Wang. C. . Escoubet. C.P.. etal. ESA SMILE definition study report. 2018. European Space Agency. 10.5270/esa.smile.definition_study_report-2018-12. ESA/SCI(2018)1. 1–84. 239612452 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230422225218/https://www.cosmos.esa.int/documents/1655046/0/SMILE_RedBook_ESA_SCI_2018_1.pdf. 2023-04-22. live.
  3. Web site: SMILE: Summary . . 19 December 2018.
  4. Web site: SMILE Mission Overview . . 14 February 2023.
  5. Web site: Airbus brings a SMILE to ESA. Airbus. 31 July 2019.
  6. Jorgensen, A.M. . T. Sun . C. Wang . L. Dai . S. Sembay . F. Wei . Y. Guo . R. Xu . Boundary Detection in Three Dimensions With Application to the SMILE Mission: the Effect of Photon Noise. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 124. 6. 4365. 10.1029/2018JA025919. 2019. 2019JGRA..124.4365J. 2381/45334. 204266610. free.
  7. Collier, M.R. . Connor, H.K.. Magnetopause Surface Reconstruction from Tangent Vector Observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 123. 12. 9022–9034. 10.1029/2018JA025763. 2018. 2018JGRA..12310189C. free. 2060/20180008652. free.
  8. Preface to the Special Issue on Modeling and Data Analysis Methods for the SMILE mission. Sun, T.R.. Connor, H.. Samsonov, A.. Earth and Planetary Physics. 8 . 1 . 10.26464/epp2023089. 2024. 1–4. free. 2024E&PP....8....1S.
  9. Geoeffectiveness of Interplanetary Alfvén Waves. I. Magnetopause Magnetic Reconnection and Directly Driven Substorms. Dai, L.. Han, Y.. Wang, C.. Yao, S.. Gonzalez, W.. Duan, S.. Lavraud, B.. Ren, Y.. Guo, Z.. The Astrophysical Journal. 945 . 47 . 10.3847/1538-4357/acb267. 2023. 47. free. 2023ApJ...945...47D.
  10. Finding magnetopause standoff distance using a soft X-ray imager: 1. Magnetospheric masking. Samsonov, A.. Carter, J.A.. Read, A.. Sembay, S.. Branduardi-Raymont, G.. Sibeck, D.. Escoubet, P.. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 127 . 12 . 10.1029/2022JA030848. 2022. 2022JGRA..12730848S. free.
  11. Finding magnetopause standoff distance using a Soft X-ray Imager: 2. Methods to analyze 2-D X-ray images. Samsonov, A.. Sembay, S.. Read, A.. Carter, J. A.. Branduardi-Raymont, G.. Sibeck, D.. Escoubet, P.. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 127 . 12 . 10.1029/2022JA030850. 2022. 2022JGRA..12730850S. free.
  12. Deriving the magnetopause position from wide field-of-view soft X-ray imager simulation. Guo, Y.. Sun, T.. Wang, C.. Sembay, S.. Sci. China Earth Sci.. 65 . 1601–1611 . 10.1007/s11430-021-9937-y. 2022. 8. 250065345. 2022ScChD..65.1601G.
  13. A new inversion method for reconstruction of plasmaspheric He+ density from EUV images. Huang, Y.. Dai, L.. Wang, C. . Xu, R.L.. Li, L.. Earth Planet. Phys.. 5 . 2 . 218–222. 10.26464/epp2021020. 2021. 30 June 2024. 2021E&PP....5..218H. free.
  14. Performance and simulated moment uncertainties of an ion spectrometer with asymmetric 2π field of view for ion measurements in space. Su, B.. Kong, L.G. . Zhang, A.B.  . Klecker, B.. Escoubet, C.P.. Kataria, D.O.. Dai, L.. Review of Scientific Instruments. 92 . 2 . 10.1063/5.0028866. 2021. 024501. 33648106. free.
  15. Soft X-ray and ENA imaging of the Earth's dayside magnetosphere. Connor, H. K.. Sibeck, D. G.. Collier, M. R.. etal. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 126 . 3 . 10.1029/2020JA028816. 2021. e2020JA028816. 33777610. 7988574. 2021JGRA..12628816C. free.
  16. Automatic auroral boundary determination algorithm with deep feature and dual level set. Tian, C.-J.. Du, H.-D.. Yang, P.-L.  . Zhou, Z.-M.. Zhao, X.-F.. Zhou, S.. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 125 . 10 . 10.1029/2020JA027833. 2020. 2020JGRA..12527833T. 224859541.
  17. Deriving the magnetopause position from the soft X-ray image by using the tangent fitting approach. Sun, T.. Wang, C. . Connor, H.K.  . Jorgensen, A.M.. Sembay, S.. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 125 . 9 . 10.1029/2020JA028169. 2020. 2020JGRA..12528169S. 225422666.
  18. Is the relation between the solar wind dynamic pressure and the magnetopause standoff distance so straightforward?. Samsonov, A.A.. etal. Geophys. Res. Lett.. 47 . 8. 10.1029/2019GL086474. 2020. 2020GeoRL..4786474S. free. 2027.42/154966. free.
  19. Exospheric neutral hydrogen density at the nominal 10 RE subsolar point deduced from XMM-Newton X-ray observations. Connor, H.K. . Carter, J.A. . Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 124 . 3 . 1612–1624. 10.1029/2018JA026187. 2019. 2019JGRA..124.1612C . free.
  20. Boundary Detection in Three Dimensions With Application to the SMILE Mission: the Effect of Model-fitting Noise. Jorgensen, A.M.. Sun, T.. Wang, C. . Dai, L.. Sembay, S.. Zheng, J.. Yu, X.  . Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 124 . 6 . 4341–4355. 10.1029/2018JA026124. 2019. 2019JGRA..124.4341J. free. 2381/45333. free.
  21. Web site: ESA and Chinese Academy of Sciences to study Smile as joint mission . ESA . 22 June 2015 . 5 October 2015.
  22. Web site: Joint Scientific Space Mission Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) - European Space Agency (ESA) PROPOSAL SMILE: Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer . Graziella . Branduardi-Raymont . Chi . Wang . 4 June 2015 .
  23. Web site: Request for Information (RFI) for the provision of the payload module for the joint ESA-China SMILE mission . . 18 December 2015 . 8 January 2016.
  24. Web site: SMILE mission summary . . 22 April 2021 . 22 April 2021.
  25. Web site: Sino-European joint space mission enters flight model phase . . 11 July 2023 . 15 September 2023.