EUROPEAN Space Agency (ESA) Director-General Josef Aschbacher has spoke highly of the China-Europe SMILE mission, saying it demonstrates that well-governed international scientific cooperation can deliver real value that benefits the global scientific community.
The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), a joint mission between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and ESA, was successfully launched Tuesday aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The satellite will improve understanding of solar storms, geomagnetic storms and the science of space weather.
Aschbacher said in a recent interview with Xinhua that ESA and China have a long-standing record of cooperation, from early data-sharing arrangements in the 1990s to today’s collaboration focused primarily on Earth science and space science. — Xinhua