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Shared May 19, 2026
Join us live on 19 May, as we broadcast the launch of the European-Chinese Smile mission.
Smile will head to space on a Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
This stream will include live launch footage from the launchpad and control room, as well as real-time interviews with people involved in the mission and its launch.
For the first time, Smile is going to reveal what really happens when charged particles from the Sun crash into Earth's magnetic shield.
It carries an X-ray camera to make the first X-ray observations of how exactly this shield responds to the solar wind, and an ultraviolet camera to watch the resulting northern lights for 45 hours at a time.
Find out more at esa.int/smile
Chapters:
00:00 Waiting
00:57 Programme begins
22:20 Liftoff
1:18:45 Smile separation
1:20:25 First signal from Smile and deployment of solar arrays
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