CHEOPS

CHEOPS News


Mar 12, 2024 5th Announcement of Opportunity (AO-5) for Participation in the CHEOPS Guest Observers programme

The 5th Announcement of Opportunity for the CHEOPS Guest Observers (GO) programme have been released on March 12 2023 and it marks the second year of opportunities in CHEOPS' first extended mission. The call opened on March 12 and will close on April 25th, with the observation window spanning from 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025 (inclusive). Science cases may range to exomoons, ring structures, stellar activity, trans-Neptunian objects, and beyond. Moreover the timely overlap of several space- and ground-based missions can provide opportunities for synergies with NASA/ESA/CSA JWST, NASA/ESA HST, NASA TESS, ESO ground telescopes.Full details on the call, on the Programme and how to apply can be found here.
The dedicated ESA website are the following:


Apr 04, 2023 Fourth Announcement of Opportunity for the CHEOPS Guest Observers programme

The Announcement of Opportunity for the CHEOPS Guest Observers (GO) programme have been released on April 4 2023 and it is the first opportunity in the CHEOPS' first extended mission. The call opened on April 4 and will close on May 25 2023 and will include observing time from 25 September 2023 to 30 September 2024. The science cases may include exomoons, ring structures, stellar activity and more.
Full details on the call, on the Programme and how to apply can be found here.

The main ESA website are the following:

Mar 07, 2023 Extended CHEOPS mission lifetime

ESA's Science Programme Committee (SPC) has confirmed the continued operations of the science missions including CHEOPS. CHEOPS approved extension will cover 2026 and an indicative extension to 2029 upon ongoing committements from national contributors.
The ESA news is here.

Jan 12, 2022 CHEOPS Science Workshop VI: the SSDC contributions to the mission

The CHEOPS Science Workshop VI is currently ongoing, from January 11 to 13 2022 (https://cheops.unibe.ch/scienceworkshop2021).
Its main goal is to be the occasion for the planetary science community at large to discuss and review the main results obtained by CHEOPS after the first two years of scientific operations.

CHEOPS is the ESA missions, launched on December 2019 and dedicated to study bright, nearby stars already known to host exoplanets, to improve the system knowledge through high-precision observations of the planet's size.

SSDC is involved in the mission for what regards the set up and maintainance of the unique Scientific Archive mirror, available at: https://cheops-archive.ssdc.asi.it/archive_browser/




Dec 29, 2021 Third Announcement of Opportunity for the CHEOPS Guest Observers programme and Discretionary Time

The third annual announcement of opportunity (AO-3) for the CHEOPS Guest Observers Programme should have been released on November 9 2021 but it has been postponed to February 15. Full details of the timeline of the call will be posted on the ESA webpage when available.
This will be the last AO for the nominal CHEOPS mission lifetime and will include observing time from approximately June 2022 to late September 2023. Nowadays it is possible to apply for observing time on CHEOPS through the Discretionary Programme. Details on the Programme, and how to apply, can be found here.

The main ESA website are the following:
Dec 27, 2021 The SSDC mirror Archive Browser Published on-line

The SSDC CHEOPS Scientific Archive mirror web interface, the Archive Browser, has been published on-line on November 30 at the address: https://cheops-archive.ssdc.asi.it/archive_browser/.

It includes all data of the latest complete reprocessing included in the main archive at the Geneva SOC, and new data are ingested daily.

Nov 04, 2020 Released the Second Announcement of Opportunity for the CHEOPS Guest Observers programme

The Second Announcement of Opportunity (AO-2) for the CHEOPS Guest Observers Programme has been released on November 4 2020 and it will be closed on December 1 2020 (13:00 CET/12:00 GMT). It solicits proposals for observations covering the period from March 26 2021 to March 25 2022.
The ESA invitation from the ESA Director of Science and the main ESA website are the following:

Feb 07, 2020 CHEOPS image of the first Target!

ESA's CHEOPS satellite has acquired the image of its first target, the star HD 70843, located 150 light years away and visible at the image center. The peculiar star shapes in the image are due to the deliberate telescope defocusing, needed to improve the starlight measurement precision spreading the light on more pixels to reduce the effect of small differences in their response.

More info at:
http://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/02/Cheops_image_of_its_first_target_star



Jan 29, 2020 CHEOPS open its eye!

Since the launch of the CHEOPS satellite, on 18 December 2019, the instrument has been switched on 8 January this year and after some health tests and calibration activities, the telescope cover has been opened this morning.



Dec 18, 2019 CHEOPS successfully in orbit!

The ESA CHEOPS mission was successfully launched on a Soyuz-Fregat launcher from Europe's spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana at 09:54:20 CET on 18 December. The satellite reached its final orbit about 2hrs later.
SSDC has the responsability to create and mantain the unique mirror of the official Science Archive.
A video of the lift off is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXLWrJo3ZG0&feature=youtu.be



Dec 02, 2019 CHEOPS encapsulation in the Soyuz-Fregat

CHEOPS is at ESA Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, and has been encapsulated today within the flight adapter of the Soyuz-Fregat rocket that will lift it into space on 17 December.

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Missions/CHEOPS/(result_type)/images

Nov 05, 2019 The #14 CHEOPS SOC meeting @ SSDC

SSDC is hosting within the ASI Headquarters the #14 CHEOPS SOC meeting, the operative progress meeting of the Science Operation Center team, which has the responsability to manage the CHEOPS data, when it will be in operation, and create the official Science Archive.
SSDC is a member of the SOC group with the responsability to host the unique Science Archive mirror. The group visiting SSDC/ASI include the SOC Development manager from the University of Geneva and the ESA project scientist.



Oct 08, 2019 Nobel prize in physics to a CHEOPS ST member

The Nobel prize in physics 2019 has been jointly awarded for one half to James Peebles "for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology", and the other half to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star". Mayor and Queloz discovered the first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, in 1995, opening the exoplanet research field currently in fast expansion. Didier Queloz is a member of the CHEOPS Science Team.

More info at:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2019/summary/
https://www.unige.ch/actualites/archives/2019/michel-mayor-et-didier-queloz-laureats-du-prix-nobel-de-physique/



Sep 17, 2019 ESA Press briefings on CHEOPS mission update

A livestrem of the ESA press briefing held on Monday 16 September has been published at https://www.europlanet-society.org/livestream-of-press-briefings-at-epsc-dps-2019/

During this briefing a launch date, mid-December 2019, has been announced for the first time.

Jul 29, 2019 CHEOPS passes final review, before shipment to launch site

The CHEOPS satellite has passed the final technical review by Arianespace on the mission including the launching details. The Satellite is ready to be shipped to the launch site at Kourou, French Guiana.

Jul 24, 2019 CHEOPS Announcement of awarded time proposals

After the closing of the first Announcement of Opportunity, AO-1, the Time Allocation Commettee met on July 2 and the Director of Science announced on July 24 the awarded observing time to 12 proposals based on the suggestions from the TAC.
The list of the 12 awarded observation proposals for a total of 530 orbits is at
https://www.cosmos.esa.int/documents/1416855/1763761/PHT2-guidelines_AO-1_v1.1.pdf/551c774d-a463-4b5a-e937-52937e314fdd?t=1563797548269

The target lists have been added to the Reserved Target list and cannot be included in future requests.

Mar 29, 2019 CHEOPS Satellite ready for launch

The ESA first small mission CHEOPS has been declared ready for launch after the final spacecraft testing phase, for total of five years of work till today.

CHEOPS lift-off will be as a secondary passenger of a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from the european spaceportin French Guiana and the launch will occurr within the launch time slot between 15 October and 14 November in 2019.

More info at:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cheops/Exoplanet_satellite_ready



Mar 19, 2019 CHEOPS First Announcement of Opportunity (AO-1)

The first call for proposals, Announcement of Opportunity, to use CHEOPS data within the ESA Guest Observers Programme has been published on 19 March and will be opened till 16 May 2019.

The awarded time will be announced on July as reported in the ESA web page
https://sci.esa.int/web/cheops/-/61228-cheops-announcement-of-opportunity-ao-1

and the launch slot is 15 October - 14 November 2019.

The ESA site dedicated to the CHEOPS AO-1 Guest Observers Programme is
https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/cheops-guest-observers-programme/ao-1

Apr 07, 2014 CHEOPS Science Archive mirror @ ASDC

The ASDC has been accepted as a CHEOPS SOC member, and will provide the Science Archive mirror.
CHEOPS mission, selected on October 2012 as the first S-class mission and officially adopted on February 2014 with launch planned for 2017, will study transits of a subset of planets in the super-Earth to Neptune mass range orbiting bright stars.

The ASDC will host the CHEOPS archive within its infrastructures and will provide access to scientific users to public and private data according to the agreed access rights. First science data are expected to be available for SOC in early 2018.

For more details:
CHEOPS on ESA website: http://sci.esa.int/cosmic-vision/49469-cheops/
CHEOPS on Bern CSH website: http://cheops.unibe.ch

Feb 21, 2014 CHEOPS formal adoption by ESA

The CHEOPS mission, the first mission dedicated to study exoplanetary transits, has been formally adopted by ESA Science Programme Commitee on February 19, thus authorizing to proceed with the implementation phase.
Selected on October 2012 as the first S-class mission within Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 with launch readiness for 2017, CHEOPS will provide the unique capability of determining radii within ~10% accuracy, for a subset of planets in the super-Earth to Neptune mass range.

The main scientific objective of the mission will be to measure the bulk density of super-Earths and Neptunes already knwon to orbit bright stars and then to provide "golden targets" for future in-depth characterisation studies of exoplanets in these mass and size ranges.

Knowing where to look and at what time to observe makes CHEOPS the most efficient instrument to search for shallow transits and to determine accurate radii for this sample of planets.

CHEOPS will also offer 20% of open time to the community to be allocated through competitive scientific review.

The CHEOPS data will be useful to prepare the PLATO mission, the next M-class ESA mission selected on the same date and dedicated to explanetary system discovery, in the best possible way.

For more details:
CHEOPS on ESA website: http://sci.esa.int/cosmic-vision/49469-cheops/
CHEOPS on Bern CSH website: http://cheops.unibe.ch
Press release CSH: http://cheops.unibe.ch/images/media/CHEOPSPLATO2014_E.pdf