Russia's Soyuz-ST-A carrier rocket with four satellites and Europe’s Cheops telescope intended to search for exoplanets has successfully blasted off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, the flight operator Arianespace announced in a live broadcast.
Europe’s CHEOPS space telescope has been developed under the program of fundamental space research implemented by the European Space Agency (ESA) in partnership with the Swiss Space Office (SSO) to study conditions on the already known exoplanets rotating around the stars closest to the solar system and to search for new such planets through the transit method, TASS reported.
Italy’s COSMO-SkyMed is the largest satellite aboard the Soyuz carrier rocket. Russia’s rocket will also orbit three small satellites: European ESA’s OPS-SAT, French EeySat and ANGELS.
This mission VS23 will be final for Arianespace this year.
