Science & Exploration
Cheops transfer
ESA’s Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, encapsulated under the ASAP-S adapter of the Soyuz launcher, being lifted onto the transport module on 29 November ahead of its transport to the final integration building at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
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.
