On Tuesday May 19, The French Guiana Spaceport Will Host A Launch Of A Joint EU / Chinese Mission Called… “SMILE”…

This will be around 11:50 pm Eastern US time.

But it will be on the 18^th, our time (our night before) — while it is almost dawn, in Central Europe. Do tune in, assuming there is no weather event that might push the launch out of limits — near the Eastern Equator off South America:

…Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will give humankind its first complete look at how Earth reacts to streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun….

ESA will be broadcasting live as the European-Chinese Smile mission launches at 04:52 BST/05:52 CEST on 19 May 2026. Smile will launch on a European Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Dates/times subject to change at short notice [due to weather and overhead traffic, among other matters]….

Tune into ESA Web TV directly or via the ESA YouTube livestream to follow the launch live.

The launch programme will run from 05:30–07:09 CEST [11:50 pm, to 1:10 am Eastern US time on May 19]….

Now you know. Multinational cooperation is the rule… in space science. Politics? Not. So. Much. Onward, just the same.

नमस्ते