Smile lifted from Large Space Simulator

In July 2025, the Smile spacecraft was removed from the Large Space Simulator at ESA’s technical heart, ESTEC, where it had been undergoing thermal tests.

This manoeuvre required a lot of work and patience to install the lifting device that slowly picks up the spacecraft and moves it out of the chamber. The Large Space Simulator is Europe’s largest vacuum chamber. It is used to ensure that spacecraft are ready for the tough conditions of space – making it crucial to lift spacecraft in and out very carefully.

Read more about the final stages of the Smile test campaign

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

[Image description: A large circular opening frames the view upward into a bright room. Suspended from a yellow overhead crane is a shiny, gold-coloured spacecraft, hanging by red straps and surrounded by cables. The perspective is from inside a dark chamber looking up at the equipment above.]