On December 16, 2020, European Space Agency (ESA) completed a successful video meeting of Science Operations Centre (SOC) Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE). Experts from SOC, spacecraft and instrument engineers, SMILE project management, Ground Support System, Science Application System (SAS) attended the meeting.

The responsibilities of ESA SOC are: Receive level-0 data, housekeeping data, and auxiliary products, then distribute them to ESA payload team. Operate instruments pipelines of quick-look level products. Receive and validate Ultra-Violet Imager (UVI) and Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) science products, and distribute them to CAS. Receive and validate Light Ion Analyser (LIA) and MAG (MAGnetometer) science products from Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Archive all mission products.

The purpose of this meeting is to verify if the design of ESA SOC for SMILE fulfils the technical and scientific requirements, as well as the management and development plan of the science operations ground segment under the responsibility of ESA, In addition, to confirm that if the risks associated with the ESA SOC implementation and their mitigation have been correctly identified.

With the success of the PDR, SOC development status is satisfactory to proceed to the critical design definition phase according to the process of ESA.