Smile team poses in front of the spacecraft container

On 11 February 2026, the Smile spacecraft was loaded into a ship in the Port of Amsterdam, ready for transport across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

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[Image description: A group of ten people standing and crouching in front of a shipping container. They are all wearing outdoor clothes and orange high-visibility vests. They mostly have their thumbs up. Hanging on the front of the shipping container, and behind the people, is a big poster that appears to have a spacecraft on the right and the Sun on the left. Above the poster is the logo for the Chinese Academy of Sciences.]