SMILE

SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a joint mission by ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to study how the solar wind shapes Earth's magnetosphere. Flying a highly elliptical orbit with an apogee of 121,000 km and a perigee of 5,000 km, it carries a soft X-ray imager - making the first X-ray observations of Earth's magnetic field - and an ultraviolet auroral camera capable of watching the aurora continuously for up to 45 hours per orbit.

First Vega launch to be operated under the responsibility of Avio.