The CHEOPS mission
Creators: name: Benz, Willy
name: Broeg, Christopher
name: Fortier, Andrea
name: Rando, Nicola
name: Beck, Thomas
name: Beck, Mathias
name: Queloz, Didier
name: Ehrenreich, David
name: Maxted, Pierre
name: Isaak, Kate
name: Billot, Nicolas
name: Alibert, Yann
name: Alonso, Roi
name: António, Carlos
name: Asquier, Joel
name: Bandy, Timothy
name: Bárczy, Tamas
name: Barrado, David
name: Barros, Susana
name: Baumjohann, Wolfgang
name: Bekkelien, Anja
name: Bergomi, Maria
name: Biondi, Federico
name: Bonfils, Xavier
name: Borsato, Luca
name: Brandeker, Alexis
name: Busch, Martin-Diego
name: Cabrera, Juan
name: Cessa, Virginie
name: Charnoz, Sébastien
name: Chazelas, Bruno
name: Cameron, Andrew Collier
name: Van Damme, Carlos Corral
name: Cortes, David
name: Davies, Melvyn
name: Deleuil, Magali
name: Deline, Adrien
name: Delrez, Laetitia
name: Demangeon, Olivier
name: Demory, Brice-Olivier
name: Erikson, Anders
name: Farinato, Jacopo
name: Fossati, Luca
name: Fridlund, Malcolm
name: Futyan, David
name: Gandolfi, Davide
name: Munoz, Antonio Garcia
name: Gillon, Michaël
name: Guterman, Pascal
name: Gutierrez, Antonio
name: Hasiba, Johann
name: Heng, Kevin
name: Hernandez, Eduardo
name: Hoyer, Sergio
name: Kiss, Laszlo
name: Kovacs, Zsolt
name: Kuntzer, Thibault
name: Laskar, Jacques
name: Etangs, Alain Lecavelier des
name: Lendl, Monika
name: López, Amador
name: Lora, Ivan
name: Lovis, Christophe
name: Lüftinger, Theresa
name: Magrin, Demetrio
name: Malvasio, Luca
name: Marafatto, Luca
name: Michaelis, Harald
name: de Miguel, Diana
name: Modrego, David
name: Munari, Matteo
name: Nascimbeni, Valerio
name: Olofsson, Göran
name: Ottacher, Harald
name: Ottensamer, Roland
name: Pagano, Isabella
name: Palacios, Roberto
name: Pallé, Enric
name: Peter, Gisbert
name: Piazza, Daniele
name: Piotto, Giampaolo
name: Pizarro, Alberto
name: Pollaco, Don
name: Ragazzoni, Roberto
name: Ratti, Francesco
name: Rauer, Heike
name: Ribas, Ignasi
name: Rieder, Martin
name: Rohlfs, Reiner
name: Safa, Frederic
name: Salatti, Mario
name: Santos, Nuno
name: Scandariato, Gaetano
name: Ségransan, Damien
name: Simon, Attila
name: Smith, Alexis
name: Sordet, Michael
name: Sousa, Sergio
name: Steller, Manfred
name: Szabó, Gyula
name: Szoke, Janos
name: Thomas, Nicolas
name: Tschentscher, Matthias
name: Udry, Stéphane
name: Van Grootel, Valérie
name: Viotto, Valentina
name: Walter, Ingo
name: Walton, Nicholas
name: Wildi, François
name: Wolter, David
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) was selected in 2012, as the first small mission in the ESA Science Programme and successfully launched in December 2019. CHEOPS is a partnership between ESA and Switzerland with important contributions by ten additional ESA Member States. CHEOPS is the first mission dedicated to search for transits of exoplanets using ultrahigh precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. As a follow-up mission, CHEOPS is mainly dedicated to improving, whenever possible, existing radii measurements or provide first accurate measurements for a subset of those planets for which the mass has already been estimated from ground-based spectroscopic surveys and to following phase curves. CHEOPS will provide prime targets for future spectroscopic atmospheric characterisation. Requirements on the photometric precision and stability have been derived for stars with magnitudes ranging from 6 to 12 in the V band. In particular, CHEOPS shall be able to detect Earth-size planets transiting G5 dwarf stars in the magnitude range between 6 and 9 by achieving a photometric precision of 20 ppm in 6 hours of integration. For K stars in the magnitude range between 9 and 12, CHEOPS shall be able to detect transiting Neptune-size planets achieving a photometric precision of 85 ppm in 3 hours of integration. This is achieved by using a single, frame-transfer, back-illuminated CCD detector at the focal plane assembly of a 33.5 cm diameter telescope. The 280 kg spacecraft has a pointing accuracy of about 1 arcsec rms and orbits on a sun-synchronous dusk-dawn orbit at 700 km altitude. The nominal mission lifetime is 3.5 years. During this period, 20% of the observing time is available to the community through a yearly call and a discretionary time programme managed by ESA.
description: Submitted to Experimental Astronomy