Science & Exploration
Cheops arrives at the launch pad
The upper composite of the Soyuz that will lift ESA’s Cheops mission into space, along with the primary passenger, the Italian space agency’s Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation satellite, and three CubeSats – including ESA’s OPS-SAT – is rolled into the mobile launch service tower at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Launch on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket is scheduled for 17 December.Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.
