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CHEOPS ground segment: Systems and automation for mission and science operations
(Elsevier, 2025-10-30) Heitzmann, Alexis; González Bonilla, María José; Bekkelien, Anja; Akinsanmi, Babatunde; Beck, Mathias; Billot, Nicolas; Broeg, Christopher; Deline, Adrien; Ehrenreich, David; Fortier, Andrea; Kirsch, Marcus; Lendl, Monika; Alfaro Llorente, Nuria; Fernández de Bobadilla Vallano, Naiara, Naiara; Fuentes Tabas, María; Maldonado, Anthony; Vega Carrasco, Eva; Modrego Contreras, David
The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) is the first European Space Agency (ESA) small-class mission. It has been performing photometric astronomical observations with a particular emphasis on exoplanetary science for the past five years. A distinctive feature of CHEOPS is that the responsibility for all operational aspects of the mission lies with the CHEOPS consortium rather than ESA. As a result, all subsystems, their architecture, and operational processes have been independently developed and tailored specifically to CHEOPS. This paper offers an overview of the CHEOPS operational subsystems, the design, and the automation framework that compose the two main components of the CHEOPS ground segment: the Mission Operations Center (MOC) and the Science Operations Center (SOC). This comprehensive description of the CHEOPS workflow aims to serve as a reference and potential source of inspiration for future small and/or independent space missions.
CHEOPS Automated Operations
(Canadian Space Agency (CSA), 2025-05-26) Fuentes Tabas, María; Alfaro Llorente, Nuria; Fernández de Bobadilla Vallano, Naiara; González Bonilla, María José; Vega Carrasco, Eva; Maldonado, Anthony; Modrego Contreras, David
CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite) is ESA’s first S-class mission dedicated to study already-known exoplanets. It performs high-precision observations of bright stars to determine exoplanets size using the transit method. S-class missions are designed to be implemented quickly and on a small budget, having an impact on every aspect of the mission, such as the spacecraft or the ground segment design. CHEOPS ground segment is mainly divided into the Mission Operations Centre, responsible for the control and operations of the satellite,the ground stations used for communication with the satellite, both hosted by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial in Madrid, and the Science Operations Centre located in Geneva.
CHEOPS was launched in December 2019 into a sun-synchronous orbit at a height of 700 km with a Local Time of Ascending Node at 6:00 a.m. As a result of the orbit design and the ground stations’ location, there are between four to six short passes per day outside of regular working hours. Therefore, operations automation was considered from the very beginning of the project to reduce costs. The initial automation requirements called for the automation of passes where the Activity Plan was not uplinked to the satellite, and the automatic notification to the operators in the event of anomalies. Operators analysed the numerous activities that could be automated considering the automation capabilities of the Mission Control System and the Flight Dynamics System, and the initial requirements were already exceeded before the launch such that most of the routine activities were fully automated. During the commissioning phase, once the automatic uplink was verified, the automatic Activity Plan uplink was introduced.
This was a significant breakthrough because routine passes no longer required manual intervention. Operators need to be present during passes only in order to respond in the event of non-routine activities or emergencies in the control centre or in the satellite. All in all, automated operations have shown to be reliable and useful for operators to efficiently control CHEOPS. Additionally, operators can concentrate on the analysis of the results and other activities that require a deeper understanding of the different subsystems by letting the automation system handle the repetitive tasks
The PAH 3.4 micron feature as a tracer of shielding in the Orion Bar and NGC 6240
(Royal Astronomical Society, 2025-11-18) Thatte, Niranjan; Rigopoulou, Dimitra; Donnan, Fergus; García-Bernete, I.; Pereira Santaella, Miguel; Draine, B.; Veenema, Oscar; Kerkeni, Boutheïna; Alonso-Herrero, Almudena; Hermosa Muñoz, Laura; Speranza, G.; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC); Comunidad de Madrid; University of Oxford; Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España)
We have carried out a detailed analysis of the 3.4 μm spectral feature arising from Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH), using James Webb Space Telescope archival data. For the first time in an external galaxy (NGC 6240), we have identified two distinct spectral components of the PAH 3.4 μm feature: a shorter wavelength component at 3.395 μm, which we attribute to short aliphatic chains tightly attached to the aromatic rings of the PAH molecules; and a longer wavelength feature at 3.405 μm that arises from longer, more fragile, aliphatic chains that are weakly attached to the parent PAH molecule. These longer chains are more easily destroyed by far-ultraviolet photons (>5 eV) and PAH thermal emission only occurs where PAH molecules are shielded from more energetic photons by dense molecular gas. We see a very strong correlation in the morphology of the PAH 3.395 μm feature with the PAH 3.3 μm emission, the latter arising from robust aromatic PAH molecules. We also see an equally strong correlation between the PAH 3.405 μm morphology and the warm molecular gas, as traced by H2 vibrational lines. We show that the flux ratio PAH 3.395/PAH 3.405 < 0.3 corresponds strongly to regions where the PAH molecules are shielded by dense molecular gas, so that only modestly energetic UV photons penetrate to excite the PAHs. Our work shows that PAH 3.405 μm and PAH 3.395 μm emission features can provide robust diagnostics of the physical conditions of the interstellar medium in external galaxies, and can be used to quantify the energies of the photon field penetrating molecular clouds.
Laboratory rotational spectroscopy and interstellar search for the protein precursor 4-oxobutanenitrile (HCOCH2CH2CN)
(Oxford University Press, 2026-02-01) Rivilla, Victor M.; Alonso, Elena Rita; Song, W.; Insausti Beiro, Aran; Maris, Assimo; Basterretxea, Francisco J.; Melandri, Sonia; Jimenez-Serra, Izaskun; Cocinero, Emilio J.; Università di Bologna; Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI); Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC); European Commission (EC); Gobierno Vasco
Understanding the presence and distribution of pre-biotic precursorsin the interstellar medium (ISM)is key to tracing the chemical origins of life. Among them, 4-oxobutanenitrile (HCOCH2CH2CN) has been identified in laboratory simulations as a plausible intermediate in the formation of glutamic acid, a proteinogenic amino acid. Here, we report its gas-phase rotational spectrum, measured using two complementary techniques: chirped-pulse Fourier transform microwave (CP-FTMW) spectroscopy (2– 18 GHz) and free-jet millimetre-wave (FJ−AMMW) absorption spectroscopy (59.6–80 GHz). Quantum chemical calculations revealed nine low-energy conformers, of which the TC conformer was assigned based on the measured spectra. The resulting spectroscopic parameters were used to search for the molecule in the ultradeep spectral survey of the G+0.693-0.027 molecular cloud, located in the Galactic Center. No signal attributable to 4−oxobutanenitrile was detected. A stringent upper limit to its column density was derived (N < 4 ×1012 cm−2), corresponding to a molecular abundance of <2.9 ×10−11 relative to H2. This upper limit lies well below the observed abundances of simpler structurally related species containing −HCO and −CN groups, underscoring the challenge of detecting increasingly complex pre-biotic molecules in the ISM and the need for future, more sensitive astronomical facilities.
