China-Europe partnership targets space weather in landmark joint mission

China and Europe in a rare collaboration are launching a joint space mission, aiming to observe space weather and study the role of Earth’s magnetic field in protecting the planet from dangerous solar radiation. Under this historic cooperation, a Vega-C rocket is set to launch the 2.3 tonne satellite called Smile on Thursday, blasting off from the European spaceport into a highly elliptical orbit. The satellite will be launched as far as 121,000km above the North Pole. The project is designed to understand how solar activities generate space weather and to analyse geomagnetic storms, responsible for disrupting the Earth-bound communication…