ESA Top Multimedia

3… 2… 1… lift off!

The joint European-Chinese Smile mission will launch this spring from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on a Vega-C rocket.

Following liftoff, the first, second and third stages of the rocket will be released one by one, before Smile finally separates from the fourth (upper) stage 57 minutes after launch.

Around 5–10 minutes later, Smile will deploy its solar arrays, stretching them out ready to collect the sunlight necessary to power its onboard systems and science instruments.

Using X-ray and ultraviolet cameras, as well as particle and magnetic field detectors, Smile will give humankind its first complete look at how Earth reacts to streams and bursts of particles and radiation from the Sun.

By improving our understanding of the solar wind, solar storms and space weather, Smile will fill a stark gap in our understanding of the Solar System and help keep our technology and astronauts safe in the future.

Watch Smile’s orbit transfer and magnetometer boom deployment (artist impression) here.

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

The joint European-Chinese Smile mission will launch this spring from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on a Vega-C rocket.

The rocket will place Smile into an almost-circular orbit around Earth’s poles.

Over the following month, Smile will gradually alter its orbit, firing its engines as it flies over Antarctica. Its final orbit will take it 121 000 km above the North Pole to collect information on Earth’s magnetic field and the northern lights, before flying close over the South Pole to deliver its data.

This special orbit will enable Smile to spend about 80% of its time at high altitude above the northern hemisphere, collecting continuous observations of the northern lights for 45 hours at a time.

After Smile has reached this final ‘science orbit’, it will deploy a three-metre-long boom that carries two magnetometer sensors at the end. These sensors will measure the strength and direction of magnetic fields around the spacecraft.

Known as ‘MAG’, data from this science instrument will be combined with data from Smile’s X-ray camera, ultraviolet camera, and particle detector to give humankind its first complete look at how Earth reacts to streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun.

By improving our understanding of the solar wind, solar storms and space weather, Smile will fill a stark gap in our understanding of the Solar System and help keep our technology and astronauts safe in the future.

Watch Smile’s launch and solar panel deployment (artist impression) here.

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

This timelapse shows a full rotation of Uranus captured by NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Thanks to its orbit at L2, Webb was able to observe the planet for approximately 17 hours continuously. 

The video consists of over 1200 slices of multi-object spectroscopy data. By mapping distribution and temperature of hydrogen in its molecular and trihydrogen form, these observations provide the most detailed view to date of Uranus’ vertical upper atmosphere. The video shows where temperatures and densities of charged particles peak, and reveals clear auroral structures shaped by the planet’s unusual magnetic field.

Using Webb’s NIRSpec instrument, the team detected the faint glow from molecules high above the clouds. These unique data provide the most detailed portrait yet of where the planet’s auroras form, how they are influenced by its unusually tilted magnetic field, and how Uranus’s atmosphere has continued to cool over the past three decades. The results offer a new window into how ice-giant planets distribute energy in their upper layers.

Read more.

The world runs on invisible satellite navigation signals: they fuel our society, generate economic growth and are integral to our security. But they can fade or vanish.

A pivotal step for more robust navigation is expanding to a system including a fleet of satellites in low Earth orbit, operating in a range of signals and frequencies.

ESA’s Celeste demonstrator mission will test the potential of such a system in providing significant augmentation and diversity to Galileo and other existing systems, increasing resilience and enabling new services to places where today’s satnav systems cannot reach.

Learn more about Celeste.

Watch the replay of the Crew-12 docking operations at the International Space Station (ISS).

On 14 February, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 10:15 UTC (11:15 CET). Following this, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked at the orbiting lab at 20:15 UTC (21:15 CET).

ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot is flying as mission specialist for the εpsilon mission. The other Crew-12 members are NASA astronauts Jessica Meir (commander) and Jack Hathaway (pilot), and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev (mission specialist).

Watch the highlights of the launch of ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot to the International Space Station (ISS) on Crew-12. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA, on Friday 13 February 2026 at 10:15 GMT/11:15 CET (5:15 local time).

Sophie flies as mission specialist. The other Crew-12 members are NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, respectively commander and pilot of the mission, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev, mission specialist.

The French ESA astronaut is the first of her class, the Hoppers, to fly. Sophie has chosen the name εpsilon for her mission, which may last up to nine months. On board the Station, she will conduct a wide range of tasks, including European-led scientific experiments and medical research, support Earth observation activities, and contribute to operations and maintenance on the Station.

Watch the full launch replay. 

At 16:45 GMT/17:45 CET the first Ariane 6 rocket with four boosters lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 12 February, taking 32 Amazon Leo satellites to orbit.

This is Ariane 6’s most powerful version yet. The new three-stage European rocket can be adapted according to each mission with either two or four boosters as well as the length of the fairing – the nosecone that splits vertically in two. This launch was the sixth Ariane 6 flight, the first to fly with four boosters and also the first with the long fairing.

Ariane 6 in its four-booster configuration, known as Ariane 64, doubles the rocket’s performance compared to the two-booster version that has flown five times including the inaugural flight in 2024. The P120C boosters used by Ariane 6 are one of the most powerful one-piece motors in production in the world. Flying with four boosters takes Ariane 6 to a whole new class of rockets. With the extra thrust from two more boosters Ariane 6 can take around 21.6 tonnes to low Earth orbit, more than double the 10.3 tonnes it could bring to orbit with just two boosters.