SMILE Mission (Science and Technology)
SMILE Mission (Science and Technology)
Context:
Chinese and European space agencies are sending a joint mission to study the Earth's defences against the Sun. The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission will be launched on a European Vega-C rocket.
About Earth’s Protection Mechanism:
The Sun constantly spews various types of matter, magnetic fields, energy and plasma into space, which can interfere with space weather.
Earth remains largely protected from these ejections thanks to the magnetic field that blankets it, a vast, comet-shaped bubble called the magnetosphere.
In our solar system, Earth has one of the strongest magnetospheres. It is the magnetosphere that makes it possible for life to form, exist and sustain on Earth.
About Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission
SMILE is not the first space mission meant to study the magnetosphere.
The mission aims to capture the first X- ray images of Earth's protective magnetic shield in action as it battles and deflects harmful charged particles and energies coming from the Sun.
These periodic events, when the Sun's ejections interact with the outer layers of Earth's magnetic field, give rise to spectacularly bright 'dancing lights' in the sky, called auroras.
By studying these interactions, the SMILE mission can help enable an early warning system for solar ejections that would be useful not just in protecting our space assets but also ground-based infrastructure, like electricity grids, from particularly nasty solar flares.
About the Mission:
SMILE weighs about 2,600 kg and has a mission life of about three years.
It will be positioned around 1.21 lakh km above Earth's north pole and be able to observe the edge of the magnetosphere fully.
Payloads:
Soft X-ray Imager (SXI),
Magnetometer,
Light Ion Analyser (LIA)
Ultraviolet aurora Imager (UVI).
It helps the solar physicists better understand space weather and forecast solar storms.
This is vital for the safety of astronauts, space-based assets like satellites, GPS, and airlines and space station operations.