Our next space science mission is about to begin its space adventure.

After more than 10 years of designing, developing, building and testing, Smile is now ready for action.

Its ride to space will be a Vega-C rocket, departing from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 19 May. The rocket will drop Smile off in a circular orbit 700 km above Earth’s surface.

Smile will then fire its own engines 11 times, taking itself higher and higher above the North Pole. From there, it will use X-ray and ultraviolet vision to watch how Earth defends itself from streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun. Nobody has ever seen Earth’s magnetic shield like this before.

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

Learn more about Smile.