Major step in UK contribution to space mission studying solar wind

Space scientists and engineers from UCL and the University of Leicester have delivered a key component for SMILE, a new space mission studying the impact of solar wind on the Earth's magnetic environment. S olar wind  is a constant stream of charged particles released from the Sun and when these gusts collide with the Earth's 'magnetosphere', they can cause 'space weather'. At its most severe this weather affects satellites, power grids and communications networks and is recognised in the Government's National Risk Register as a key disruptive threat to the UK national technological infrastructure. Destined to launch at the end of 2024, the SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) probe will carry the UK's latest X-ray telescope, the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI), which will continuously monitor the position of the boundary between the region of space controlled by the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind. Its images, in conjunction with the other instruments on SMILE, will help scientists refine their modelling of this Sun-Earth connection and the resulting 'space weather' providing valuable knowledge that will eventually help mitigate its effects. Professor Graziella Branduardi-Raymont of UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory and European Co-Principal Investigator for the mission, said: "One of the most interesting aspects of SMILE SXI is the fact that we are using technology so far applied for looking outwards to X-ray sources in the far Universe to study how our own Earth responds to the impact of the Sun's activity." A team from UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory have built the electronics that operate the detectors and retrieve the signals that produce X-ray images of the space around the Earth.