Perfect placement for Smile’s payload module

On 21 January 2025, engineers at ESA’s technical heart (ESTEC) connected the two main parts of the Smile spacecraft, putting it into its final flight configuration.

At the bottom of this image we see the spacecraft platform, which contains one of the four science instruments, as well as everything else that the spacecraft needs to function, including the modules responsible for powering, steering and controlling the spacecraft. The platform is covered in a red silky cloth to protect it from falling screws and other objects that could be dropped when the payload module is lowered on top of the platform.

Coming in slowly from above, millimetre by millimetre, is the payload module, which hosts the other three science instruments. Two engineers on aerial platforms (one hidden behind the spacecraft) carefully support the perfect positioning of the two spacecraft parts. The black wire wristbands that they wear connect them electrically to the spacecraft, to avoid generating an electric discharge.

Find out more about the testing and integration of Smile at ESTEC

Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a 50–50 collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

[Image description: A man on an aerial platform wearing a hard hat and white coat is working on a spacecraft. The spacecraft is in two parts; the top part is being lowered onto the bottom part. The bottom part is covered in a red cloth. The scene takes place in a cleanroom.]