In-situ observations of resident space objects with the CHEOPS space telescope
Creators: name: Billot, Nicolas
name: Hellmich, Stephan
name: Benz, Willy
name: Fortier, Andrea
name: Ehrenreich, David
name: Broeg, Christopher
name: Heitzmann, Alexis
name: Bekkelien, Anja
name: Brandeker, Alexis
name: Alibert, Yann
name: Alonso, Roi
name: Bárczy, Tamas
name: Navascues, David Barrado
name: Barros, Susana C. C.
name: Baumjohann, Wolfgang
name: Biondi, Federico
name: Borsato, Luca
name: Cameron, Andrew Collier
name: van Damme, Carlos Corral
name: Correia, Alexandre C. M.
name: Csizmadia, Szilard
name: Cubillos, Patricio E.
name: Davies, Melvyn B.
name: Deleuil, Magali
name: Deline, Adrien
name: Demangeon, Olivier D. S.
name: Demory, Brice-Olivier
name: Derekas, Aliz
name: Edwards, Billy
name: Egger, Jo Ann
name: Erikson, Anders
name: Fossati, Luca
name: Fridlund, Malcolm
name: Gandolfi, Davide
name: Gazeas, Kosmas
name: Gillon, Michaël
name: Güdel, Manuel
name: Günther, Maximilian N.
name: Helling, Ch.
name: Isaak, Kate G.
name: Kiss, Laszlo L.
name: Korth, Judith
name: Lam, Kristine W. F.
name: Laskar, Jacques
name: Etangs, Alain Lecavelier des
name: Lendl, Monika
name: Magrin, Demetrio
name: Maxted, Pierre F. L.
name: Mecina, Marko
name: Merín, Bruno
name: Mordasini, Christoph
name: Nascimbeni, Valerio
name: Olofsson, Göran
name: Ottensamer, Roland
name: Pagano, Isabella
name: Pallé, Enric
name: Peter, Gisbert
name: Piazza, Daniele
name: Piotto, Giampaolo
name: Pollacco, Don
name: Queloz, Didier
name: Ragazzoni, Roberto
name: Rando, Nicola
name: Rauer, Heike
name: Ribas, Ignasi
name: Rieder, Martin
name: Santos, Nuno C.
name: Scandariato, Gaetano
name: Ségransan, Damien
name: Simon, Attila E.
name: Smith, Alexis M. S.
name: Sousa, Sérgio G.
name: Stalport, Manu
name: Sulis, Sophia
name: Szabó, Gyula M.
name: Udry, Stéphane
name: Ulmer, Bernd
name: Ulmer-Moll, Solène
name: Van Grootel, Valérie
name: Venturini, Julia
name: Villaver, Eva
name: Walton, Nicholas A.
name: Wilson, Thomas G.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an)
subject: Space Physics (physics.space-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) is a partnership between the European Space Agency and Switzerland with important contributions by 10 additional ESA member States. It is the first S-class mission in the ESA Science Programme. CHEOPS has been flying on a Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit since December 2019, collecting millions of short-exposure images in the visible domain to study exoplanet properties. A small yet increasing fraction of CHEOPS images show linear trails caused by resident space objects crossing the instrument field of view. To characterize the population of satellites and orbital debris observed by CHEOPS, all and every science images acquired over the past 3 years have been scanned with a Hough transform algorithm to identify the characteristic linear features that these objects cause on the images. Thousands of trails have been detected. This statistically significant sample shows interesting trends and features such as an increased occurrence rate over the past years as well as the fingerprint of the Starlink constellation. The cross-matching of individual trails with catalogued objects is underway as we aim to measure their distance at the time of observation and deduce the apparent magnitude of the detected objects. As space agencies and private companies are developing new space-based surveillance and tracking activities to catalogue and characterize the distribution of small debris, the CHEOPS experience is timely and relevant. With the first CHEOPS mission extension currently running until the end of 2026, and a possible second extension until the end of 2029, the longer time coverage will make our dataset even more valuable to the community, especially for characterizing objects with recurrent crossings.
description: 9 pages, 8 figures, Special Issue of the Journal of Space Safety Engineering