Swiss space telescope stays in space longer
Keystone-SDA
The CHEOPS space telescope can continue its research for longer. The European Space Agency ESA has extended the Swiss-led mission until 2029.
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The ESA had already extended the mission by three years for the first time in 2023. The responsible scientific committee has now decided to extend it by a further three years, as announced by the Universities of Geneva and Bern on Thursday.
The space telescope was built by a European consortium under the leadership of the University of Bern and ESA. Since its launch in December 2019, it has been exploring planets outside our solar system. The control centre is operated by the University of Geneva.
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How a special telescope learns about new planets
Previous discoveries include the detection of a deformed exoplanet. Due to strong tidal forces, this has the shape of a rugby ball, not a sphere. In addition, the discovery of a planet around the star LHS in 1903 called into question current theories on the arrangement of planets in a system.
Another 12 missions extended
In addition to CHEOPS, the other 12 missions whose current scientific phase expires at the end of 2026 have also been extended, as announced by the ESA. These include the well-known James Webb and Hubble space telescopes as well as the Bepicolombo, Hinode, IRIS, Mars Express, Proba-3, SOHO, Solar Orbiter, XMM-Newton, Einstein Probe and XRISM missions
Switzerland is actively involved in almost all projects through technology or personnel management. Only in the case of Hubble and Einstein Probe is its role limited to ESA co-financing and pure data utilisation.
Translated from German by AI/jdp
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