An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The first mission, conducted by the → European Space Agency, dedicated to searching for → exoplanetary transits by performing ultra-high precision → photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. Launched on 18 December 2019, Cheops is a small spacecraft with a launch mass (including propellant) of approximately 280 kg. It has a single instrument: a high precision → photometer with a 300 mm effective aperture telescope and a single → charge-coupled device (CCD) → detector covering → visible to → near-infrared wavelengths.

The mission’s main science goals are to measure the bulk density of → super-Earths and Neptunes orbiting bright stars and provide suitable targets for future in-depth characterization studies of → exoplanets in these mass and size ranges.

See also: CHEOPS, short for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite.