ESA Science & Technology - News Archive

The CHEOPS Time Allocation Committee (TAC) met on 11 - 13 May 2022 to review proposals submitted to the third and final annual Announcement of Opportunity (AO-3) for observing time in ESA's CHEOPS Guest Observers Programme during the nominal mission.

Proposals are solicited in response to the third, and final, Announcement of Opportunity (AO-3) for observing time in the CHEOPS Guest Observers Programme during the nominal mission. This AO covers the period from 1 July 2022 to 24 September 2023.

The third annual announcement of opportunity (AO-3) for participation in the CHEOPS Guest Observers Programme was due to open on 9 November 2021. The AO has been postponed and is currently foreseen to come out in early 2022.

While exploring two exoplanets in a bright nearby star system, ESA's exoplanet-hunting CHEOPS satellite has unexpectedly spotted the system's third known planet crossing the face of the star. This transit reveals exciting details about a rare planet "with no known equivalent", say the researchers.

Observing time on CHEOPS in the Guest Observers Programme has been awarded to nine proposals received in response to the CHEOPS second Announcement of Opportunity (AO-2).

ESA's exoplanet mission CHEOPS has revealed a unique planetary system consisting of six exoplanets, five of which are locked in a rare rhythmic dance as they orbit their central star. The sizes and masses of the planets, however, don't follow such an orderly pattern.

Proposals are solicited in response to the second Announcement of Opportunity (AO-2) for observing time in the CHEOPS Guest Observers Programme. This AO covers the period 26 March 2021 to 25 March 2022. The deadline for proposals is 1 December 2020, 13:00 CET/12:00 GMT.

Proposals are invited for the CHEOPS Discretionary Programme, an element of the Guest Observers Programme which enables scientists to propose observations of individual targets that have been discovered, or declared to be of high scientific merit, since the close of AO-1 back in mid-May 2019.

CHEOPS, ESA's new exoplanet mission, has successfully completed its almost three months of in-orbit commissioning, exceeding expectations for its performance.

ESA's exoplanet-observer CHEOPS acquired the first image of its initial target star, following the successful telescope cover opening on 29 January 2020.

Six weeks after the launch of CHEOPS, ESA's Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, the telescope cover was opened as part of the mission's in-orbit commissioning.

The science instrument on ESA's Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, CHEOPS, was successfully activated on 8 January, marking the beginning of the mission's in-orbit commissioning.

ESA's CHEOPS mission lifted off on a Soyuz-Fregat launcher from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 09:54:20 CET on 18 December on its exciting mission to characterise planets orbiting stars other than the Sun.