ESA’s Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, is getting ready for launch at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Launch is scheduled on 18 December.
In this picture, taken on 6 December, the Airbus team is performing final checks before lifting the Souyz Arianespace System for Auxiliary Payloads (ASAP-S) and positioning it on the Soyuz Fregat interface ring. The ASAP-S multi-passenger dispenser system will be used to integrate the main passenger, Cheops and the Cubesats into the launcher.
Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.
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Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG/JM Guillon
Tags: 2019 CSG CU2 Campagne lancement Cheops CubeSat S3B Soyuz ST-B VS23 decembre integration pose satellite ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology French Guiana Guiana Space Centre
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The Cheops satellite being fuelled with hydrazine at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 23 November. A highly specialised team of fuellers is at work, protected by special suites. Fuelling is controlled via a dedicated set-up which allows to control accurately the quantity of propellant loaded in the satellite tank.
Scheduled for launch on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket on 17 December, Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.
More about Cheops
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG/P Baudon
Tags: 2019 CU2 Campagne lancement Cheops S5A VS23 ergolier novembre remplissage satellite ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology Kourou GUYANE FRANCE
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The copper-coloured baffle cover of our Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, in the clean room at Airbus Defence and Space Spain, Madrid.
After completing spacecraft testing, the satellite has passed a very important review that determined it is ready to fly. Cheops will be stored in Madrid for a few months before being shipped to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana; launch is scheduled in the time slot between 15 October and 14 November.
The baffle cover pictured in this image is designed to protect the satellite’s scientific instrument – a powerful camera, or photometer – during assembly and launch. Once in space, the cover will open, allowing light from stars to enter the telescope.
Cheops will make observations of exoplanet-hosting stars to measure small changes in their brightness due to the transit of a planet across the star's disc, targeting in particular stars hosting planets in the Earth-to-Neptune size range. The information will enable precise measurements of the sizes of the orbiting planets to be made: combined with measurements of the planet masses, this will provide an estimate of their mean density – a first step to characterising planets outside our Solar System.
Cheops paves the way for the next generation of ESA’s exoplanet satellites, with two further missions – Plato and Ariel– planned for the next decade to tackle different aspects of the evolving field of exoplanet science.
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Credits: ESA – S. Corvaja
Tags: ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology CHEOPS Space Science Image of the Week Engineering craft Spacecraft Exoplanets
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Artist's impression of Cheops, ESA's Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, in orbit above Earth. In this view the satellite's telescope cover is closed.
Credits: ESA / ATG medialab
Tags: ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology CHEOPS CHaracterizing ExOPlanets Satellite Artist's impression Earth Telescope
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The Cheops (CHaracterising ExOPlanet) spacecraft in the Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) test chamber at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, on 7 September, 2018.
The Cheops spacecraft is currently undergoing a series of acoustic testing.
Cheops will observe bright stars known to host exoplanets, in particular Earth-to-Neptune-sized planets, anywhere in the sky. It will study the dip in brightness of a star as a planet transits in front of it, allowing the size of these planets to be determined. Combined with mass measurements already calculated from other observatories, Cheops will enable the planet’s density to be determined, and thus make a first-step characterisation of the nature of these worlds.
Credits: ESA - G. Porter
Tags: ESA European Space Agency Space Universe Cosmos Space Science Science Space Technology Tech Technology CHEOPS ExoPLanets In The Clean Room Clean Room ESTEC Netherlands LEAF Large European Acoustic Facility Large European Acoustic Facility Engineering engineer
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