CHEOPS final integration

The final integration and testing of the CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite) satellite has now been completed at the Airbus facility in Madrid at the end of February 2019. The satellite is now ready for storage and shipping in preparation for the launch campaign planned for the fall of 2019 with a target the period between 15 October and 14 November 2019. The image here shows the satellite before the solar array integration and multi-layer insulation (MLI) finalisation. CHEOPS will be launched from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on a Soyuz rocket operated by Arianespace. 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.