The ESA Science Programme Committee (SPC) selected CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanets Satellite) in October 2012 as the first Small-class mission (S1) within the Agency’s Scientific Programme, with the following requirements: science driven mission selected through an open Call; an implementation cycle, from the Call to launch, drastically shorter than for Medium-class (M) and Large-class (L) missions; a strict cost-cap to ESA, with possibly higher Member States involvement than for M or L missions. The CHEOPS mission is devoted to the characterization of known exoplanets orbiting bright stars, achieved through the precise measurement of exoplanet radii using the technique of transit photometry. It was adopted for implementation in February 2014 as a partnership between the ESA Science Programme and Switzerland, with a number of other Member States delivering significant contributions to the instrument development and to operations. The CHEOPS instrument is an optical Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with 300 mm effective aperture diameter and a large external baffle to minimize straylight. The compact CHEOPS spacecraft (approx. 300 kg, 1.5 m size), based on a flight-proven platform, will orbit the Earth in a dawn-dusk Sun Synchronous Orbit at 700 km altitude. CHEOPS completed the Preliminary Design Review at the end of September 2014, and passed the Critical Design Review in May 2016. In the course of 2017, flight platform and payload have been integrated and tested, while satellite level activities are planned to start in early 2018, targeting flight readiness by the end of the year. The paper describes the latest CHEOPS development status, focusing on the acceptance test performed on instrument and platform, as well as on the satellite level environmental test campaign.

/pdf/cheops-the-esa-mission-for-exo-planets-characterization-4skqjn4m5t.pdf

CHEOPS: The ESA Mission for Exo-Planets Characterization Ready for Launch

The European Space Agency (ESA) Science Programme Committee (SPC) selected CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanets
Satellite) in October 2012 as the first S-class mission (S1) within the Agency’s Scientific Programme, targeting
launch readiness by the end of 2017. The CHEOPS mission is devoted to the first-step characterization of known
exoplanets orbiting bright stars, to be achieved through the precise measurement of exo-planet radii using the technique
of transit photometry. It is implemented as a partnership between ESA and a consortium of Member States led by
Switzerland.
CHEOPS is considered as a pilot case for implementing ”small science missions” in ESA with the following
requirements: science driven missions selected through an open Call for missions (bottom-up process); spacecraft
development schedule much shorter than for M and L missions, in the range of 4 years; and cost-capped missions to ESA
with possibly higher Member States involvement than for M or L missions.
The paper describes the CHEOPS development status, focusing on the performed hardware manufacturing and test
activities.

ESA CHEOPS mission: development status

CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanets Satellite) is an ESA scientific mission devoted to the characterization of known exoplanets orbiting bright stars, achieved through the precise measurement of exoplanet radii using the technique of transit photometry. CHEOPS was selected in October 2012 as the first Small-class mission (S) within the Agency’s Scientific Programme, with an implementation cycle drastically shorter than for Medium-class (M) and Large-class (L) missions and strict cost-cap to ESA. Following the phase A/B1 study, CHEOPS was adopted for implementation in February 2014 as a partnership between the ESA Science Programme and Switzerland, with a number of other Member States delivering significant contributions to the instrument development and to operations. The CHEOPS payload is a high precision photometer, with an optical Ritchey-Chretien telescope with 300 mm effective aperture and a large external baffle to minimize straylight. The CHEOPS spacecraft (280 kg mass, 1.5 m size) is based on a flight-proven platform and is now operating in a dawn-dusk Sun Synchronous Orbit at 700 km altitude. CHEOPS completed the Preliminary Design Review at the end of September 2014, passed the Critical Design Review in May 2016 and the Qualification and Acceptance review in February 2019. CHEOPS was launched on a shared Soyuz flight from the European Space Centre of Kourou on 18 December 2019 (VS23), completing the In-Orbit Commissioning in March 2020. The paper describes the CHEOPS launch campaign, the early operations phase and the In-Orbit Commissioning results, including instrument and spacecraft performance.

CHEOPS, the ESA mission for exo-planets characterization: early operations and commissioning results

Exoplanet hunting efforts have revealed the prevalence of exotic worlds with diverse properties, including Earth-sized bodies, which has fueled our endeavor to search for life beyond the Solar System. Accumulating experiences in astrophysical, chemical, and climatological characterization of uninhabitable planets are paving the way to characterization of potentially habitable planets. In this paper, we review our possibilities and limitations in characterizing temperate terrestrial planets with future observational capabilities through 2030s and beyond, as a basis of a broad range of discussions on how to advance "astrobiology" with exoplanets. We discuss the observability of not only the proposed biosignature candidates themselves, but also of more general planetary properties that provide circumstantial evidence, since the evaluation of any biosignature candidate relies on their context. Characterization of temperate Earth-size planets in the coming years will focus on those around nearby late-type stars. JWST and later 30 meter-class ground-based telescopes will empower their chemical investigations. Spectroscopic studies of potentially habitable planets around solar-type stars will likely require a designated spacecraft mission for direct imaging, leveraging technologies that are already being developed and tested as part of the WFIRST mission. Successful initial characterization of a few nearby targets will be an important touchstone toward a more detailed scrutiny and a larger survey that are envisioned beyond 2030. The broad outlook this paper presents may help develop new observational techniques to detect relevant features as well as frameworks to diagnose planets based on the observables.

Exoplanet Biosignatures: Observational Prospects

The performance of astronomical space telescopes can be greatly impacted by straylight. That is why characterizing the straylight in such telescopes before they are deployed is paramount. Nowadays such characterization can be done by simulation or by test. Simulation can provide very useful information on the origin of straylight, helping devise solutions to reduce it and improve the performance of the telescope. However, simulation suffers from limitations due to processing power needed and assumptions made in the model which can lead to simulation results quite far from the actual performances. Standard straylight tests on the other hand provide accurate measurement of the straylight but without any insight about its origin, making it difficult to mitigate. Emerging technologies now offer new possibilities for straylight measurement using time-of-flight technics to help identify the origin of the straylight. Such technologies were reviewed and analysed in a first activity called TRIPP (Time-Resolved Imaging of Photon Paths). The results and outcome of this study are presented in the first chapter of this paper. A second chapter then presents the ongoing status of a second activity, SLOTT (Straylight Lidar Ogse verificaTion Tool) which aims to develop a demonstrator for such a time-resolved straylight verification system. With the development and test of such a tool, CSEM and its partners (TAS-CH, Difrotec, CSL, LusoSpace), supported by ESA, hopes to establish new methods to characterize and reduce the straylight propagation in future space-based telescopes.

Verification of straylight rejection of optical science payloads using a pulsed laser source

CHEOPS (CHaracterizing ExOPlanets Satellite) is the first ESA Small Mission as part of the ESA Cosmic Vision program 2015-2025. The mission was formally adopted in early February 2014 with a planned launch readiness end of 2017. The mission lead is performed in a partnership between Switzerland, led by the University of Bern, and the European Space Agency with important contributions from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The mission is dedicated to searching for exoplanetary transits by performing ultrahigh precision photometry on bright starts already known to host planets whose mass has been already estimated through ground based observations. The instrument is an optical Ritchey-Chretien telescope of 30 cm clear aperture using a single CCD detector. The optical system is designed to image a de-focused PSF onto the focal plane with very stringent stability and straylight rejection requirements providing a FoV of 0.32 degrees full cone. The system design is adapted to meet the top-level science requirements, which ask for a photometric precision of 20ppm, in 6 hours integration time, on transit measurements of G5 dwarf stars with V-band magnitudes in the range 6≤V≤9 mag. Additionally they ask for a photometric precision of 85 ppm in 3 hours integration time of Neptune-size planets transiting K-type dwarf stars with V-band magnitudes as faint as V=12 mag. Given the demanding schedule and cost constrains, the mission relies mostly on components with flight heritage for the platform as well as for the payload components. Nevertheless, several new developments are integrated into the design as for example the telescope structure and the very low noise, high stability CCD front end electronics. The instrument and mission have gone through critical design review in fall 2015 / spring 2016. This paper describes the current instrument and mission design with a focus on the instrument. It outlines the technical challenges and selected design implementation. Based on the current status, the instrument noise budget is presented including the current best estimate for instrument performance. The current instrument design meets the science requirements and mass and power margins are adequate for the current development status.

CHEOPS: status summary of the instrument development

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CHEOPS: status summary of the instrument development