Spacecraft Launches To Probe How Earth Weathers Powerful Solar Storms

A joint European-Chinese spacecraft is preparing to blast off to study how Earth's magnetic shield protects the planet when powerful solar storms slam into it.

The mission, called SMILE, short for Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, is set to launch aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 03:52 GMT on Tuesday, after a previous liftoff attempt in April was postponed due to a technical issue.

The van-sized spacecraft will investigate what happens when high-speed streams of charged particles and massive eruptions of plasma from the Sun, known as coronal mass ejections, collide with Earth's magnetic field.

Scientists hope the mission will improve forecasts of "space weather" events that can disrupt technology and infrastructure on the ground and in orbit, according to Science Alert.

Solar wind is a constant flow of charged particles from the Sun, but during intense solar storms it can be amplified into blasts racing toward Earth at about two million kilometres per hour.

When these streams reach our planet after one to two days, the magnetosphere, Earth's magnetic bubble, usually deflects most of the particles, acting like a shield.

During the most extreme events, however, some particles penetrate deeper into the upper atmosphere, where they can interfere with power grids, radio links, GPS, and satellites, even as they create vivid auroras in the night sky.

The mission will make the first-ever X-ray observations of Earth's magnetic field as it interacts with the solar wind, by detecting X-rays produced when solar particles collide with neutral atoms high in the atmosphere.

SMILE will also carry a UV imager, ion analyser, and magnetometer to provide a global view of how energy from the Sun is transferred into Earth's space environment.

The spacecraft is a collaboration between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with a UK-built X-ray imager and Chinese-built instruments for plasma and magnetic field measurements, ABC News reported.

After launch, SMILE will first be placed about 700 kilometres above Earth before moving into a highly elliptical orbit that stretches out to around 121,000 kilometres at its most distant point.

From this vantage point, it will repeatedly sweep over the polar regions, including passes about 5,000 kilometres above the South Pole, where it will downlink data to an Antarctic ground station.

The orbit will let the spacecraft continuously watch the northern lights for up to 45 hours at a time, giving researchers an unprecedented long-term view of how auroras respond to changes in the solar wind.

SMILE is designed to operate for at least three years and could begin returning science data within an hour of reaching orbit.

Researchers say the results should feed into improved space-weather models, complementing other missions that track solar storms and helping authorities better protect satellites, astronauts, and critical systems such as communication networks and electricity grids when the Sun turns violent, as per Forbes.