OUTER space and the Bronze Age do not sit well in the same sentence – they may both have existed at the same time, but anyone based on Earth back then would not have known much, or anything, about what lies beyond.
'Ground-breaking' Spanish-built planet-exploring satellite launched
19/12/2019
A MOSTLY-SPANISH satellite was due to go up into orbit yesterday (Wednesday) – the first in history destined for monitoring planets outside our Solar System.
Engineers from Torrejón de Ardoz (Greater Madrid region) have been waiting in apprehension these last few days until they saw the Soyuz rocket go up with CHEOPS – especially after its planned launch on Tuesday had to be put back due to possible software problems.
But it was confirmed at around 04.00 this morning mainland Spain time that CHEOPS was now, finally, in orbit.
A European Space Agency (ESA) project which Spain has been almost 100% responsible for building, the CHEOPS stands for 'Characterisation of Exo-Planets', or planets outside the solar system, and is designed to study stars which are known to 'serve' as suns for other planets in order to work out whether any of these may contain the elements necessary to house life.
Using 'ultra-precise transit photometry', CHEOPS will provide some of the most accurate footage of planets light-years away ever shown.
Unlike other famous satellites such as Kepler and TESS, built by NASA , CHEOPS is not 'a discovery machine', according to the ESA – it is 'more of a monitoring mission focused on systems that have already been discovered'.
In layman's terms, others have made the discoveries and CHEOPS will take over exploring them.
“The mission will be able to estimate the sizes of these planets with much greater accuracy, improving our data on density and allowing scientists to refine their models of how planets are formed and evolve,” says the ESA.
Scientists involved in the CHEOPS mission are based at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and will, in addition to taking much more detailed information about the size of the planets, be able to obtain data about their atmospheres – such as whether they have clouds, which would indicate a presence of water – and about their moons and rings if they have these.
“After two decades of discovering new planets, with CHEOPS, we're entering an era of 'exo-planetology',” says Didier Queloz, head of CHEOPS science at Genoa University (Italy).
Whilst not its primary function, the CHEOPS mission also has significant potential for discovering other planets, and about 15% of the programme is focused on this.
CHEOPS was built and assembled by Airbus Defence and Space at its headquarters in Barajas – where Madrid airport is based – and then transported to Kuru in Guyane Française ('French Guyana'), a French overseas territory just north of Brazil, for its launch.
Several ESA member States, plus Switzerland, have been involved, but the bulk of the work was coordinated from the space consortium in the INTA base in Torrejón de Ardoz.
Although ground-breaking right now, CHEOPS is only the first stage of an ambitious exo-planetary exploration strategy devised by the ESA.
Two more huge satellites – Plato and Ariel – will be launched at the end of the 2020s, but CHEOPS is the only one to go up now for a decade.
CHEOPS is also a 'low-cost' mission – in space science terms, its budget of under €50 million and development time of six years is quick and cheap.
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A MOSTLY-SPANISH satellite was due to go up into orbit yesterday (Wednesday) – the first in history destined for monitoring planets outside our Solar System.
Engineers from Torrejón de Ardoz (Greater Madrid region) have been waiting in apprehension these last few days until they saw the Soyuz rocket go up with CHEOPS – especially after its planned launch on Tuesday had to be put back due to possible software problems.
But it was confirmed at around 04.00 this morning mainland Spain time that CHEOPS was now, finally, in orbit.
A European Space Agency (ESA) project which Spain has been almost 100% responsible for building, the CHEOPS stands for 'Characterisation of Exo-Planets', or planets outside the solar system, and is designed to study stars which are known to 'serve' as suns for other planets in order to work out whether any of these may contain the elements necessary to house life.
Using 'ultra-precise transit photometry', CHEOPS will provide some of the most accurate footage of planets light-years away ever shown.
Unlike other famous satellites such as Kepler and TESS, built by NASA , CHEOPS is not 'a discovery machine', according to the ESA – it is 'more of a monitoring mission focused on systems that have already been discovered'.
In layman's terms, others have made the discoveries and CHEOPS will take over exploring them.
“The mission will be able to estimate the sizes of these planets with much greater accuracy, improving our data on density and allowing scientists to refine their models of how planets are formed and evolve,” says the ESA.
Scientists involved in the CHEOPS mission are based at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and will, in addition to taking much more detailed information about the size of the planets, be able to obtain data about their atmospheres – such as whether they have clouds, which would indicate a presence of water – and about their moons and rings if they have these.
“After two decades of discovering new planets, with CHEOPS, we're entering an era of 'exo-planetology',” says Didier Queloz, head of CHEOPS science at Genoa University (Italy).
Whilst not its primary function, the CHEOPS mission also has significant potential for discovering other planets, and about 15% of the programme is focused on this.
CHEOPS was built and assembled by Airbus Defence and Space at its headquarters in Barajas – where Madrid airport is based – and then transported to Kuru in Guyane Française ('French Guyana'), a French overseas territory just north of Brazil, for its launch.
Several ESA member States, plus Switzerland, have been involved, but the bulk of the work was coordinated from the space consortium in the INTA base in Torrejón de Ardoz.
Although ground-breaking right now, CHEOPS is only the first stage of an ambitious exo-planetary exploration strategy devised by the ESA.
Two more huge satellites – Plato and Ariel – will be launched at the end of the 2020s, but CHEOPS is the only one to go up now for a decade.
CHEOPS is also a 'low-cost' mission – in space science terms, its budget of under €50 million and development time of six years is quick and cheap.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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