The SMILE mission of the European Space Agency has been postponed due to a technical issue. The launch was scheduled for Thursday.

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Wednesday the postponement of the SMILE mission, intended for observing solar winds that interact with the Earth's magnetic field.

The launch of the SMILE satellite, which was supposed to take place on Thursday from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, has been suspended due to a technical issue that arose in the production of a component of the Vega-C launcher's subsystem. ESA communicated that the launch will be rescheduled for a later date, according to information provided by the main contractor, the Italian company Avio. Solar winds, generated by coronal mass ejections from the Sun, can reach speeds of up to 2 million kilometers per hour. These streams of particles can interact with the Earth's atmosphere, causing phenomena such as the northern lights, but they can also generate solar storms that affect satellites and telecommunications systems.