A launching ceremony for Small Explorer for Solar Eruptions (SMESE), a joint Chinese-French mission to observe the solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) for the next Solar Maximum in about 2011, was held at the headquarters of the France's National Center for Space Research (CNES) on March 22. Chinese collaborators present at the ceremony were from the CAS Purple Mountain Observatory, the CAS Center for space Science and Applied Research, National Astronomical Observatories at CAS and Nanjing University.
The Main Scientific Objectives of this joint project are to establish the interconnections between flares and CMEs, to trace the disc source region of CME, to diagnose the high energy particles accelerated by flares and CMEs, and to study the energy transportation mechanisms. SMESE will achieve the first space inner corona observations at Ly-line, the first space solar infrared observations, and the first coordinated flare-CME observations.
