Smile's first glimpse of French Guiana

Following a two-week journey from the Netherlands, the Maritime Nantaise Colibri cargo ship carrying the Smile spacecraft docked in Kourou, French Guiana on Thursday 26 February.

Smile was then unloaded, transported to Europe's Spaceport, and then unpacked. During the coming weeks, the spacecraft will go through final preparations for its launch on a Vega-C rocket between 8 April and 7 May.

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

[Image description: A view from land of a ship coming through a narrow strait. The ship is large, mostly blue, and has the letters M and N on the side. The landscape looks tropical, with palm trees and blue skies, but also a little rugged, with grey rocks poking out from the ground and a hill in the distance, on the other side of the straight. A few people are standing on land in front of the ship, watching it arrive.]