China and Europe launch rare joint space mission

{"text":[[{"start":9.53,"text":"Europe and China are launching a joint space mission to study how Earth’s magnetic field shields the planet from harmful solar radiation, a rare example of collaboration as space competition intensifies."}],[{"start":23.71,"text":"The ambitious project aims to understand how solar turbulence generates “space weather” and to predict geomagnetic storms that can disrupt terrestrial communications, knock out power grids and damage electronic equipment. "}],[{"start":38.86,"text":"A Vega-C rocket is set to launch the 2.3 tonne satellite, called Smile, on Thursday. It will blast off from the European spaceport in French Guiana into a highly elliptical orbit that will take it as far as 121,000km above the North Pole. "}],[{"start":58.09,"text":"Besides its scientific purpose, Smile stands out as an example of public bodies in China and the west working together on a big technology project."}],[{"start":68.77000000000001,"text":"When the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and European Space Agency (ESA) agreed on the mission in 2016, the geopolitical context was more conducive to collaboration, said Josef Aschbacher, ESA director-general. "}],[{"start":87.21000000000001,"text":"“You have to see the origins of Smile in that period,” he said. “The scientific teams from Europe and China have been working very well together . . . but at the moment there is no discussion of a follow-up mission.” "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":101.89000000000001,"text":"The US and China are locked in a space race to return humans to the Moon, and ESA is closely involved with its US counterpart Nasa, including working together on the current Artemis lunar mission. But China and Europe are keen to keep open the door to further collaboration in space and they have contributed scientific instruments to each other’s spacecraft."}],[{"start":126.42000000000002,"text":"When ESA hosted a meeting with leaders of the China National Space Administration in January, the two agencies agreed to look for further opportunities to co-operate but nothing specific emerged. "}],[{"start":139.56,"text":"Jing Li, Smile project manager at CAS, said the Smile partners have had “excellent understanding of each other throughout”."}],[{"start":149.36,"text":"Logistical hurdles raised by controls over the export of sensitive technology, as well as safety regulations and technical problems, delayed Smile by at least a year. Numerous authorities had to approve the transfer of the Chinese satellite platform and instruments for assembly at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands, said ESA. For example, ammonia in the heat pipes led to them being labelled as ‘dangerous goods’."}],[{"start":180.45000000000002,"text":"Even so, the 11-year solar activity cycle will still be near a maximum when Smile is observing Earth’s magnetosphere, the field that shields the planet’s surface from the most harmful particles and radiation bursting out from the Sun."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":197.14000000000001,"text":"Smile is the latest in a succession of space missions over the last 30 years looking out at the Sun or monitoring Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere, which have given a good but still incomplete picture of the terrestrial impact of solar activity. "}],[{"start":214.64000000000001,"text":"The four scientific instruments on Smile are designed to fill in some of the gaps, including a soft X-ray imager, built by Leicester University in the UK, which will map boundaries of the magnetosphere for the first time."}],[{"start":230.13000000000002,"text":"“We will be able to see how our magnetic bubble changes its shape, whether it does this smoothly or in steps, and how it gets squeezed down as eruptions from the Sun pass Earth,” said Colin Forsyth, a space scientist at University College London working on Smile. “We’ve never done anything like this before.”"}],[{"start":252.07000000000002,"text":"Smile’s ultraviolet imager can observe the northern lights aurora over the North Pole continuously for as long as 45 hours. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":262.6,"text":"Besides showing what happens when the solar wind meets Earth’s magnetic shield, the mission will help scientists predict dangerous geomagnetic storms more quickly and accurately. "}],[{"start":275.53000000000003,"text":"The last big storm in May 2024 disrupted satnav signals and high-frequency radio communications worldwide, while creating spectacular aurora displays. "}],[{"start":288.12,"text":"Quebec’s power grid collapsed in a solar storm in 1989, leaving 6mn people in the Canadian province without electricity for nine hours. A repeat of the greatest solar storm on record, the Carrington event of 1859 which wrecked the world’s telegraph networks, would cost trillions of dollars today but the damage could be mitigated by warning operators to shut down vulnerable equipment and systems. "}],[{"start":326.26,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1775459121_1317.mp3"}