The CHEOPS mission
Abstract
The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) was selected in 2012, as the first small mission in the ESA Science Programme and successfully launched in December 2019. CHEOPS is a partnership between ESA and Switzerland with important contributions by ten additional ESA Member States. CHEOPS is the first mission dedicated to search for transits of exoplanets using ultrahigh precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. As a follow-up mission, CHEOPS is mainly dedicated to improving, whenever possible, existing radii measurements or provide first accurate measurements for a subset of those planets for which the mass has already been estimated from ground-based spectroscopic surveys and to following phase curves. CHEOPS will provide prime targets for future spectroscopic atmospheric characterisation. Requirements on the photometric precision and stability have been derived for stars with magnitudes ranging from 6 to 12 in the V band. In particular, CHEOPS shall be able to detect Earth-size planets transiting G5 dwarf stars in the magnitude range between 6 and 9 by achieving a photometric precision of 20 ppm in 6 hours of integration. For K stars in the magnitude range between 9 and 12, CHEOPS shall be able to detect transiting Neptune-size planets achieving a photometric precision of 85 ppm in 3 hours of integration. This is achieved by using a single, frame-transfer, back-illuminated CCD detector at the focal plane assembly of a 33.5 cm diameter telescope. The 280 kg spacecraft has a pointing accuracy of about 1 arcsec rms and orbits on a sun-synchronous dusk-dawn orbit at 700 km altitude. The nominal mission lifetime is 3.5 years. During this period, 20% of the observing time is available to the community through a yearly call and a discretionary time programme managed by ESA.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2009.11633,
title = {The CHEOPS mission},
author = {Willy Benz and Christopher Broeg and Andrea Fortier and Nicola Rando and Thomas Beck and Mathias Beck and Didier Queloz and David Ehrenreich and Pierre Maxted and Kate Isaak and Nicolas Billot and Yann Alibert and Roi Alonso and Carlos António and Joel Asquier and Timothy Bandy and Tamas Bárczy and David Barrado and Susana Barros and Wolfgang Baumjohann and Anja Bekkelien and Maria Bergomi and Federico Biondi and Xavier Bonfils and Luca Borsato and Alexis Brandeker and Martin-Diego Busch and Juan Cabrera and Virginie Cessa and Sébastien Charnoz and Bruno Chazelas and Andrew Collier Cameron and Carlos Corral Van Damme and David Cortes and Melvyn Davies and Magali Deleuil and Adrien Deline and Laetitia Delrez and Olivier Demangeon and Brice-Olivier Demory and Anders Erikson and Jacopo Farinato and Luca Fossati and Malcolm Fridlund and David Futyan and Davide Gandolfi and Antonio Garcia Munoz and Michaël Gillon and Pascal Guterman and Antonio Gutierrez and Johann Hasiba and Kevin Heng and Eduardo Hernandez and Sergio Hoyer and Laszlo Kiss and Zsolt Kovacs and Thibault Kuntzer and Jacques Laskar and Alain Lecavelier des Etangs and Monika Lendl and Amador López and Ivan Lora and Christophe Lovis and Theresa Lüftinger and Demetrio Magrin and Luca Malvasio and Luca Marafatto and Harald Michaelis and Diana de Miguel and David Modrego and Matteo Munari and Valerio Nascimbeni and Göran Olofsson and Harald Ottacher and Roland Ottensamer and Isabella Pagano and Roberto Palacios and Enric Pallé and Gisbert Peter and Daniele Piazza and Giampaolo Piotto and Alberto Pizarro and Don Pollaco and Roberto Ragazzoni and Francesco Ratti and Heike Rauer and Ignasi Ribas and Martin Rieder and Reiner Rohlfs and Frederic Safa and Mario Salatti and Nuno Santos and Gaetano Scandariato and Damien Ségransan and Attila Simon and Alexis Smith and Michael Sordet and Sergio Sousa and Manfred Steller and Gyula Szabó and Janos Szoke and Nicolas Thomas and Matthias Tschentscher and Stéphane Udry and Valérie Van Grootel and Valentina Viotto and Ingo Walter and Nicholas Walton and François Wildi and David Wolter},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.11633},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
Submitted to Experimental Astronomy