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ESA’s exoplanet-observer Cheops acquired the first image of its initial target star, following the successful telescope cover opening on 29 January 2020. The intentionally blurry image is a product of the specially designed telescope optics, which are deliberately defocused to maximise the precision of Cheops’ measurements and enable its unprecedented study of exoplanets, or planets […]
A grand synthesis of Rosetta data has shown how its target comet repeatedly changed colour during the two years it was watched by the spacecraft. The chameleon comet’s nucleus became progressively less red as it made its close pass around the Sun, and then red again as it returned to deep space. To source
Image: ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft being encapsulated into the fairing of the US Atlas V 411 rocket at the Astrotech payload processing facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida during launch preparations on 20 January 2020. Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led space mission with strong NASA participation to study the Sun, its outer atmosphere and […]
Image: ESA’s new Sun-observing spacecraft Solar Orbiter inside the fairing of the US Atlas V 411 rocket at the Astrotech payload processing facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida during launch preparations on 21 January 2020. Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led space mission with strong NASA participation to study the Sun, its outer atmosphere and […]
Image: ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft being encapsulated into the fairing of the US Atlas V 411 rocket at the Astrotech payload processing facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of the launch on 21 January 2020. Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led space mission with strong NASA participation to study the Sun, its outer atmosphere […]
Video: 00:03:15 ESA’s Solar Orbiter is getting ready for its launch on an Atlas V rocket provided by NASA and operated by United Launch Alliance from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Once in space, and over the course of several years, the spacecraft will repeatedly use the gravity of Venus and Earth to raise its orbit above […]
Video: 00:02:27 ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission takes a closer look at the Sun than any European satellite before. The sophisticated probe, carrying ten instruments for imaging the surface of our star and measuring the properties of the environment in its vicinity, can be seen in this animation going through parts of the launch and activation […]
Video: 00:03:14 This timelapse video shows the preparations for the launch of ESA’s Cheops, the Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The video spans about three weeks, starting on 28 November 2019 and ending on 18 December with the liftoff. Over this period, the fully integrated and fuelled spacecraft was fitted […]
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. To source
Image: Artist’s impression of Solar Orbiter following separation from the Centaur upper stage of the Atlas V 411 rocket launching the mission into space. Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. Its mission is to perform unprecedented close-up observations of the Sun and from high latitudes, providing the first […]
Image: Artist’s impression of Solar Orbiter making a flyby at Earth. Solar Orbiter will make one gravity assist flyby of Earth and numerous flybys of Venus over the course of its mission to adjust its orbit, bringing it closer to the Sun and also out of the plane of the Solar System to observe the […]
Image: Artist’s impression of Solar Orbiter following launch and separation, with its solar arrays deployed. The instrument boom and antennas have not been deployed at this stage. Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. Its mission is to perform unprecedented close-up observations of the Sun and from high latitudes, […]
Image: Artist’s impression of the fairing encapsulating Solar Orbiter being released following launch on an Atlas V 411. Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. Its mission is to perform unprecedented close-up observations of the Sun and from high latitudes, providing the first images of the uncharted polar regions […]