COROT sees first light! (Forwarded)

ESA News
http://www.esa.int

24 January 2007

COROT sees first light!

In the night between 17 and 18 January 2007, the protective cover of the
COROT telescope has been successfully opened, and COROT has seen for the
first time light coming from stars.

Surveying vast stellar fields to learn about star interiors and to search
for extra-solar planets is the goal of this unique mission, whose scientific
observations will officially start at the beginning of February this year.

The first light detected by COROT comes from the constellation of the
Unicorn near Orion, the great 'hunter' whose imposing silhouette stands out
in the winter nights. This nice image, taken during the in-orbit calibration
exercise, shows that the quality of this preliminary data is basically as
good as the computer simulations. "This is an excellent piece of news,"
commented Malcolm Fridlund, ESA Project Scientist for COROT.

On 18 January, the telescope was carefully aligned with the region to be
observed, facing away from the centre of our Galaxy. This setting that will
be maintained until April, when the Sun's rays will start to interfere with
the observations.

COROT will then rotate by 180 degrees and will start observing the opposite
region towards the centre of the Milky Way. In the meantime the COROT
scientists are preparing for the science phase to start in February,
continuing a thorough examination of the data and the information collected
so far.

Note to editors

COROT was set in space by a Soyuz rocket after a text-book launch from the
Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 27 December 2006. Settled in its
almost-circular polar orbit ranging between 895 and 906 kilometres altitude
over the Earth's surface, the spacecraft was powered on 2 January 2007, and
has begun its calibration exercise, still on going.

Major steps of this testing phase have been the test of the COROT four
thrusters's nozzles, necessary to precisely orient the spacecraft in space,
and the calibration of the light sensors. The sensor calibration process,
which paradoxally must take place in total darkness, is designed to check
the detector arrays pixel by pixel. For a given amount of light, a pixel
doesn't generate exactly the same amount of current as its neighbours, so
these individual responses must be taken into account when applying
corrections to the scientific data to come.

COROT is a CNES project with ESA participation. The other major partners in
this mission are Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Germany and Spain.

For more information:

Malcolm Fridlund, ESA COROT Project Scientist
Email: malcolm.fridlund @ esa.int

[NOTE: Images and weblinks supporting this release are available at
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMH7ASMTWE_index_1.html ]