Aligning the Demonstration Model of CHEOPS

摘要

CHEOPS (CHaracterizing ExOPlanets Satellite) is an ESA Small Mission, planned to be launched in mid-2018 and whose main goal is the photometric precise characterization of radii of exoplanets orbiting bright stars (V<12) already known to host planets. Given the fast-track nature of this mission, we developed a non-flying Demonstration Model, whose optics are flight representative and whose mechanics provides the same interfaces of the flight model, but is not thermally representative. In this paper, we describe CHEOPS Demonstration Model handling, integration, tests, alignment and characterization, emphasizing the verification of the uncertainties in the optical quality measurements introduced by the starlight simulator and the way the alignment and optical surfaces are measured.