Fitting Cheops into the flight adapter

At Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, ESA’s Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, is being fitted into the flight adapter of the Soyuz-Fregat rocket that will lift it into space on 17 December.

In this picture, taken on 28 November, the Airbus team carefully monitoring the mating process, regularly checking for proper orientation before placing the satellite on the flight adapter ring that will serve as interface with the launcher vehicle.

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.

More about Cheops