SMILE

Solar wind-Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Link Explorer

A number of SMILE Science Working Groups have been set up to ensure that the mission science objectives are achieved and optimised with complementary measurements on the ground and in space. 

DFWG - Data Format Working Group (Chairs: Rocio Guerra and Andrew Walsh, ESA)  
The DFWG holds 2-3 meetings a year, either as stand alone online meeting or face-to-face meetings the same week as the bi-annual SWT/SOWG meetings. This Working Group (WG) helps coordinating SMILE file naming convention, metadata definition, Digital Object Identifiers or DOI, data access protocols used and file exchange between data centers.

GBAS - Ground-Based and Additional Science (Chair: Jenny Carter, Leicester University) 
Links with relevant ground-based facilities are already well established. Preliminary contacts with operational and forthcoming space missions are taking place in order to coordinate observing and data analysis and visualisation software efforts.

ISWG - In Situ (Chair: Lei Dai, NSSC/CAS) 
The ISWG activity is centred on optimising the design, operations and calibrations planning of the in situ instrument package. It also includes discussions related to pointing and measurement accuracy requirements, operational modes, calibration plans and data products in relation with the SMILE science objectives.

OWG - Outreach (Chair: Colin Forsyth, MSSL/UCL) 
Much discussion and activity is taking place to generate contacts with organisations promoting science in primary and secondary schools, holding workshops and promoting careers in science. It focuses on SMILE as a practical example of how space projects are developed, and encouraging pupils to follow its progress up to launch and beyond. Activities in popular knowledge based websites are also discussed and coordinated.

SMWG - SMILE Modelling Working Group (co-chaired: Hyunju Connor, GSFC, NASA; Tianran Sun, NSSC/CAS, Beijing, China; Andrey Samsonov, UCL, UK) 

This WG aims at coordinating and driving the simulation and modelling activities ongoing in many SMILE related institutes, in particular to

• predict/interpret the images the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) will generate,
• simulate the changes of magnetospheric boundary locations under different solar wind conditions,
• extract magnetospheric boundary and cusp positions

This work is essential to optimise the SXI observing strategy once SMILE is operational. The WG holds regular teleconferences and face-to-face meeting the same week as the biannual SWT/SOWG meetings. During the WG meetings,  cutting-edge science is reported and discussed in detail.