Groundbreaking X-ray Telescope By Leicester Powers SMILE Space Mission

The cutting-edge X-ray telescope, developed at Leicester Space Park by scientists and engineers at the University of Leicester for the upcoming SMILE mission, has completed a series of essential tests on an instrument’s flight model. In the coming months, before the pre-launch integration of the entire spacecraft, engineers will test all payload instruments of Leicester’s X-ray Telescope and the platform at the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands.

Leicester X-ray Telescope Set For Solar Wind Study

The Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) instrument is part of the science payload of an international mission called SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer). It is a compact X-ray telescope with a wide field of view (FOV). 

This innovative telescope can cover large regions of the Earth’s magnetosphere from the SMILE orbital vantage point. It uses microporous optics to spectrally map the location, shape and motion of the boundaries of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The unique orbit will allow scientists to observe important regions of near-Earth space for more than 40 hours at a time.

The instrument’s focal length is about 30 cm, and the main body of the telescope is about 85 cm high, including the attached optical baffle. The total mass of the instrument with electronic units and wiring harnesses is 32 kg.

Unique X-ray Sources Monitoring Instrument

Thanks to its sensitive sensors, SXI can detect soft X-rays produced by solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) when heavy solar wind ions interact with neutral particles in the Earth’s exosphere.

This telescope is unique because it will be the first instrument to routinely acquire X-ray images of Earth’s magnetic envelope regions over an extended time.

In addition to its primary scientific goals, SXI will provide extensive observations of astrophysical X-ray sources and accumulate millions of seconds of exposure over large sky areas during its lifetime. The telescope has excellent potential for secondary science related to monitoring (and detecting) variable and transient X-ray sources.

The SXI development project is led by the University of Leicester (UK) in collaboration with the Mallard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) and the Open University (UK), as well as organisations that provide hardware, software and scientific support in the UK, Europe, China and the USA.

Dr Stephen Sembay, Principal Investigator of SMILE SXI at the University of Leicester, said: “SXI is a powerful but compact X-ray telescope that was challenging to design within the size and mass constraints and space environment imposed by the SMILE mission. It was a real team effort to meet all these challenges. It is a testament to the technical skills of our university engineers here in the UK and the excellent collaborative atmosphere throughout our international consortium.”

Leicester X-ray Telescope’s Manufacturing And Costs

The UK Space Agency has committed around £13 million to developing and manufacturing this innovative device as part of its mission to invest in world-class advanced technology and science.

British space engineers provided vital subsystems, including the telescope main assembly, the X-ray optics module, the advanced X-ray detector system, and associated readout electronics.

Space Park Leicester was actively involved in the project, providing the Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT) team with all the necessary equipment and a purpose-built clean room to integrate the spaceflight subsystem. 

Dr Caroline Harper, Head of Space Sciences at the UK Space Agency, said: “This is a major milestone for Leicester Space Park and a huge achievement for the University of Leicester. We must expand our understanding and gain new insights into the solar winds that bombard our planet’s magnetosphere.”

SMILE Mission Details

SMILE is a joint scientific mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic environment. The mission will launch in September 2025 from Kourou in French Guiana using a Vega-C rocket.

The three other instruments include the SMILE science payload with SXI, an Ultraviolet Thermal Imager (UVI), a Magnetometer (MAG), and a Light Ion Analyzer (LIA).

Once deployed, Smile’s solar arrays will have a total area of 4.2 m2.

Smile’s orbit will be up to 121,000 kilometres from Earth above the North Pole (at most one-third of the way to the Moon and far enough from Earth to allow Smile to image the Earth’s magnetic field boundary).

When the four 380-litre fuel tanks are complete, the total payload weight of the platform will be about 2,300 kg.

The spacecraft will be assembled, integrated, and tested at ESTEC, ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands.

Smile will send its scientific data mainly to a ground station operated by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) at O’Higgins, Antarctica.

SMILE has a nominal service life of 3 years and a maximum potential service life before deorbiting of 7 years.