CHEOPS, looking for exoplanets with Leonardo eyes
The European Space Agency's CHEOPS satellite (Characterizing ExoPlanets Satellite) will be able to scan the space in search of Earth-like planets thanks to sophisticated "eyes" designed and built by Leonardo.
The CHEOPS space telescope, commissioned by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), was designed and built in the Leonardo plant in Campi Bisenzio (Florence), where engineers, specialized physicists and technicians have created the instrument according to the requirements defined by the INAF researchers of Padua and Catania (OAPD and OACT), in collaboration with the University of Bern.
In particular, Leonardo, together with the contribution of small and medium-sized enterprises, oversaw the creation of the telescope optical system, based on aspheric mirrors, and of the collimation optics on the focal plane (mirror and lenses).
The telescope is optimized for very high precision photometric measurements. The primary mirror measures 320mm in diameter and the resulting assembly is very compact (the length of the main optical tube is only 300mm) to limit its mass and dimensions.
The Leonardo plant in Campi Bisenzio boasts a long history of excellence in the creation of instruments for Earth observation, including highly technological electro-optical instruments. The Leonardo supply of the CHEOPS telescope confirms the leadership in the field of optics achieved in recent years by the company and the Italian scientific community. Another example of this record is the most powerful hyperspectral chamber in the world, launched on board the PRISMA (ASI) mission last March.
CHEOPS, which will operate on an orosynchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 km, will investigate the nature of the largest extrasolar planets on Earth and smaller than Neptune. It will be the first scientific mission to closely study, for at least three and a half years, the already known solar systems, scrutinizing the characteristics of their planets with extreme precision and accuracy. The technique used is that of observing the transit of exoplanets in front of their stars.
Thanks to Leonardo's telescope, CHEOPS will in fact be able to observe and measure with very high precision the planets that, turning around bright stars (magnitude from 6 to 12), will attenuate the light for short periods. The slight fluctuation of observed light will allow to accurately calculate the mass and the dimensions of the planet, thus collecting fundamental information to study its structure, for example if rocky or gaseous. CHEOPS will therefore allow us to deepen our understanding of distant worlds, today, still unknown.