ESA Science & Technology - Journal Archive
25 June 2019It takes collaboration and teamwork to operate a spacecraft. As the CHEOPS launch approaches, a Europe-wide team is preparing to take control of inflight activities once the satellite is in space.
12 February 2019After a successful series of tests, the team that will operate the CHEOPS mission is ready for the activities to follow the satellite launch later this year.
17 October 2018For the CHEOPS mission, September was a busy month of acoustic noise testing and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) testing at ESA's technical centre in the Netherlands.
31 August 2018This summer, the CHEOPS satellite breezed through thermal tests in France and vibration tests in Switzerland, demonstrating that it is ready to operate in the extreme cold of space and also fit to withstand the mechanical stresses of launch.
5 July 2018The latest CHEOPS test campaign can be thought of as the first full dress rehearsal for in-flight mission operations.
3 May 2018Members of the CHEOPS consortium could be proud of their achievement as the science instrument of the upcoming exoplanet mission left Bern on its journey to Madrid last month.
18 December 2017With the flight models of the CHEOPS spacecraft and telescope maturing, crucial tests can now be run with real hardware in place of simulations. The latest such tests involved operating the payload with the Mission Control System to test and validate real operational command sequences.
18 October 2017As the James Webb Space Telescope progresses toward launch, the telescope and its scientific instruments are undergoing an arduous series of checks to ensure their flight readiness.
12 July 2017In our previous update, we reported on the delivery of the CHEOPS telescope from Florence to Bern. While the scientific payload is being assembled in Switzerland, work in Spain has focused on preparing the spacecraft platform that will carry the payload and provide power, propulsion, communications, and thermal control.
16 June 2017The journey to launch for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is – literally – a testing time for the groundbreaking observatory. After demonstrating that it can come through the ordeal of vibrations and loud sounds associated with a launch, the telescope and its instruments have now been moved to Houston, Texas, for a final three-month test...
4 May 2017A major milestone for the CHEOPS mission was passed on 28 April 2017, when the telescope flight model was delivered to the University of Bern by Leonardo-Finmeccanica, on behalf of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF).
21 December 2016In the second half of 2016, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was readied for an intensive series of environmental tests, an essential step in ensuring that it will survive the stresses of launch and complete its groundbreaking survey of the infrared sky.
21 December 2016With less than two years remaining before its scheduled launch, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has passed several major milestones, including the completion of its huge primary mirror and integration of its four science instruments with the payload module.
16 December 2016Over the last 10 months, the CHEOPS solar cell assemblies have been put through their paces in the test facilities at industry and in the Solar Generator Laboratory of the Power Systems Division (TEC-EP) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) as part of the qualification campaign. In parallel, the flight solar arrays have...
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