This colourful design capturing the scientific essence of ESA’s upcoming Cheops exoplanet mission – characterising planets as they transit in front of their host star – has been selected as the winning design that will be featured on the rocket that will launch the satellite into space.
The design was one of over 300 submitted to the competition that offered graphic designers and artists the unique opportunity to feature their work on the rocket that will launch Cheops – the CHaracterising ExOplanets Satellite – to Earth orbit.
The design was created by Denis Vrenko of Celje, Slovenia, a 25 year-old graphic designer and final-year architecture student at the University of Ljubljana.
Full story: Winning exoplanet rocket sticker selected
Credits: ESA/D. Vrenko
Tags: ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology Exoplanet Cheops Denis Vrenko graphic design design rocket sticker competition illustration circle colourful colorful
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ESA’s Cheops satellite – seen here at Airbus in Madrid – will measure the sizes of known exoplanets by detecting tiny fluctuations in the light of their parent stars. Due to be ready for launch at the end of this year, Cheops, or ‘CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite’ is only 1.5 m by 1.4 m by 1.5 m in size. It weighs in at about 300 kg fully fuelled – less than a large motorbike.
Small satellites as a term covers everything from this sub-tonne class of mission, down to CubeSats and picosats. Their ever-growing capabilities is under discussion at this week’s 4S Small Satellite Systems and Services Symposium in Sorrento, Italy. Organised by ESA’s Head of Optics, Luca Maresi, the symposium’s speakers include Roger Walker, who leads ESA’s Technology CubeSat efforts on sending small satellites beyond Earth orbit.
Credits: Airbus Defence and Space
Tags: ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology CHEOPS Technology Image of the Week 'Spacecraft Airbus Defense and Space CubeSat
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A test model of ESA’s exoplanet-watching Cheops satellite being placed in an acoustic chamber in Europe’s largest spacecraft testing centre, helping to ensure the flight version can endure the extreme conditions of a rocket launch.
The Characterising ExOPlanet Satellite is ESA’s first small science mission. Selected in October 2012, it will track the crossings of known planets across the face of their parent stars, to make detailed deductions of their size and composition. The telescope will detect tiny shifts in stellar brightness with ultra-high precision.
Once the tests are completed, this ‘structural qualification model’ will be reconfigured as the actual satellite, helping to meet a tight development schedule that is aiming for launch readiness at the end of 2017 and a shared launch opportunity in the first half of 2018.
Cheops is seen here being moved into ESA’s Large European Acoustic Facility, capable of subjecting satellites to the same noise as a rocket produces as it takes off and flies through the atmosphere.
The chamber is an integral part of ESA’s ESTEC test centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, a collection of spaceflight simulation facilities under a single roof.
One wall of the chamber is embedded with a set of enormous sound horns. Nitrogen shot through the horns can produce a range of noise up to more than 154 decibels, like standing close to multiple jets taking off.
Credit: ESA–C. Carreau
Tags: ASE Agence Spatiale Européenne CHEOPS ESA European Space Agency
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ESA’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite mission – Cheops – underwent important testing last year to be ready for launch by the end of 2018.
Cheops will operate from a low orbit circling Earth, taking its power from the Sun. As such, an important focus of the prelaunch testing is qualifying the satellite’s solar arrays and their cells.
The image shows part of the 12 solar cell assemblies in the Vacuum Solar Cell Illumination Facility at ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands.
The cells were heated to high temperatures to reflect what the satellite will experience once in space. In fact, the actual temperatures were scaled in order to accelerate the ageing effects experienced in flight, to represent a 3.5 year mission in just a few months.
The cells spent 2000 hours at 140ºC, 2000 hours at 160ºC and 2090 hours at 175ºC. After the tests, the cells’ maximum power and short circuit current had degraded by less than 2%, clearly below the acceptance criterion of 3%.
As a result of these tests, the Cheops solar arrays and their elements are now ready for the mission.
Once in space, Cheops will measure the density of exoplanets with sizes or masses in the super-Earth to Neptune range. Its data will set new constraints on the structure of planets in this mass range, and therefore also on their formation and evolution.
Read more about last year’s tests: Cheops solar arrays tested and built
Credit: ESA – C. Carreau
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Space Science image of the week:
Seen here is a Cheops team member reflected in the satellite’s main mirror, and framed by the black internal surface of the telescope tube. The back of the secondary mirror is seen at the centre of the image, held in place by three struts.
Cheops is ESA’s CHaracterising ExoPlanet Satellite mission that will monitor Earth-to-Neptune-sized planets orbiting stars in other star systems.
Light from the host stars will enter the telescope and be reflected by the primary mirror towards the secondary, which in turn will direct the starlight through a hole in the centre of the primary mirror, onto the CCD detector.
It is the same design used for the larger NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESA’s Herschel observatory.
By precisely tracking a star’s brightness, Cheops will detect the transit of a planet as it passes briefly across the star’s face. This allows the radius of the planet to be accurately measured. For those planets of known mass, the density will be revealed, providing an indication of the structure, and ultimately how planets of this size formed and evolved.
The Cheops telescope reached an important milestone at the end of April when it was delivered to the University of Bern by Leonardo-Finmeccanica, on behalf of Italy’s ASI space agency and the INAF Italian National Institute for Astrophysics.
Read more about the telescope and latest tests: CHEOPS telescope arrives at new home
Cheops is an ESA mission in partnership with Switzerland and with important contributions from 10 other member states.
Credit: University of Bern / T. Beck
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