CHEOPS

Kurzfassung

CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite) is the first S-class mission from ESA, which will be launched in December 2019. CHEOPS’ payload is a telescope of 32 cm aperture. It will perform photometric observation from low Earth orbit to measure transits of already known host stars further characterize already known planetary systems. The mission goals are - to search for shallow transits on stars already known to host planets obtaining a transit signal-to-noise ratio of 5 for an Earth-size planet with a period of 50 days on G5 dwarf stars with V- magnitude brighter than 9th. - to provide precision radii for a number of hot Neptune planets orbiting stars brighter than 12th V magnitude and to search for co-aligned smaller mass planets - to measure the phase modulation due to the different contribution of the dayside of hot Jupiter planets and in some cases to measure the secondary eclipse.