Corot, Stars vibrations and extrasolar planets Options

[Bob Shaw]

Corot Space Telescope On Target For October Launch

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Corot_Sp...ber_Launch.html

Do you realise that it therefore seems likely, what with the glacial VSE progress, that they'll launch the Corot before The Stick?

Bob Shaw

[konangrit]

Some updates on Corot from cnes:

31 January 2006 System Validation Preparation Review
From 10 February to 4 April 2006 Mechanical qualification tests, in Cannes
From 3 to 7 April 2006 Safety trip to Baïkonour
From 11 to 13 April 2006 First system validation tests at the COROT Mission Center, in Toulouse
From 5 to 9 June 2006, 10th COROT WEEK in Nice

[GravityWaves]

The Corot web site is showing an october 2006 launch date.
And I received the confirmation from the launch campaign manager that this is indeed the planned date.

-- Rakhir

Thanks for the update, its about time we started to take the exoplanet transit search more seriously
looks like a great mission from the Euros

I hope NASA's future TPF gets running aswell

[konangrit]

Due to a failure of the launcher, the launch is delayed until 15 November 2006

http://exoplanet.eu/corot.html

The Corot homepage has also been updated to show a 11/06 launch date.

[edstrick]

does some body have a good PDF or printable pages on Corot. A professional grade spacecraft mission description, rather than a dumbed down PR sheet?

I'm too lazy and too overloaded to dig for one on the ESA Quagmire.. I mean website.

[GravityWaves]

ESA website is extremely user-unfriendly, it might be only a few weeks awya but they have nothing on the homepage about extra solar planets

there's a lot of talk on the web about this one
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=38876
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4478
another Euro mission Darwin
http://uplink.space.com/printthread.php?Ca...amp;type=thread
PDF Exoplanet detection capability of the COROT space mission
http://www.citebase.org/abstract?id=oai:ar...stro-ph/0305159

[konangrit]

Flight Acceptance Review, in Cannes, from 5 to 7 September 2006

This review board meeting, jointly organized by CNES and Alcatel Alenia Space teams, had the objective to pronounce technical qualification of the COROT satellite before moving to Baikonour. This major milestone took place after the spacecraft has completed all environmental and functional system testing successfully and shown that the telescope works well together in harmony with the vehicule operations.

FLight Acceptance Review

[Drkskywxlt]

Anybody have an exact date for launch yet? COROT's website still says 11/06, but I see nothing more specific on its website nor any other. Is it being launched from French Guiana or Kazakhstan?

[Rakhir]

It seems that the launch date has been pushed to december 18th (Link).
The same web site was showing a november 24th launch date some days ago.

The delay might be related to the re-scheduling of Metop launch because, if I well remember, Corot will be launched with the same new upgraded Soyuz fairing as Metop.
The launch date of Corot might depend on a successful Metop launch.

[konangrit]

Dec. 21: The Soyuz-2-1b vehicle with the new RD-0124 engine to fly its first test mission from Site 31 at Baikonur, launching a 630-kilogram Corot astronomy satellite in a 850-kilometer polar orbit. The mission was announced on Jan. 4, 2005 and at the time it was expected to take place in the second quarter of 2006, it was then pushed to September and October 2006. After problems with the launch of Metop satellite in July 2006, the Corot mission was pushed to December 21, 2006, and it could be preceeded by the launch of the Meteor-3M onboard the first Soyuz-2-1b, which itself was delayed from 2005 and the fourth quarter of 2006. As of beginning of October 2006, the delivery of the Corot spacecraft to Baikonur was expected on Oct. 23, 2006.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/

[Rakhir]

Europe goes searching for rocky planets

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMN45PFHTE_index_0.html

[konangrit]

COROT launch from Baïkonour cosmodrome is scheduled on 22 December 2006

http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/GP_actualite.htm

[konangrit]

Shipment of the satellite to the Baïkonour Space Center on 14 November 2006

The loading operations of the spacecraft container on board the Antonov 124 (at Nice airport) gave the signal to start the launch campaign.
The satellite container, arrived at Baïkonour the following day after customs clearance in Moscow, was transferred by train to the MIK 112 building, where will take place the launch preparation operations for the next 4 weeks. Launch date of 21 December 2006 has been confirmed by Starsem.

http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/GP_actualite.htm

Photos and Video:

http://smsc.cnes.fr/COROT/A_campagne.htm

[Toymaker]

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?o...r=0&thold=0

Also discussed was the upcoming CoRoT mission, a space telescope that will search for extrasolar planets by looking for transits -- where a planet crosses in front of its star and therefore blocks some of the starlight that reaches us. CoRoT will be able to spot short period transits of 50 days or less, so only planets very close to their stars will be discovered by this mission.
As I am a total amatour what does this mean ? Does anybody know in what AU from the main star planets can be detected ?

[edstrick]

Corot will have short observation periods, a few months max, compared with the 4 year continuous glassy-eyed STARE of Keplar. Most of the planets it discovers -- AND CONFIRMS -- by seeing 2, preferably 3, transits will be in close-in short period <shorter than Mercury's 88 days> orbit. Basically, they're looking for "Hot Super-Terrestrials", as well as "Hot Neptunes" and "Hot Jupiters".

They can't see Earth mass planets, in all probability, but ones several times the mass of the Earth. But it's all part of sampling the "Parameter space" of extra-solar planets to understand the processes that made very un-solar-system-like planetary systems.