Planetary missions with Swiss involvement
CHEOPS mission
CHEOPS stands for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite and is an ESA satellite mission. Switzerland, led by the University of Bern, is acting as the main partner.
The satellite is equipped with a telescope that measures transits of exoplanets. A transit means that the planet passes in front of its star. This changes the light that enters the telescope from the star. Researchers want to use CHEOPS to determine the radius of exoplanets whose mass is already known.
JUNO mission
In 2011, the Juno satellite began its flight to Jupiter, where it arrived in 2016.
Researchers are using the mission to collect data on the formation of the giant planet, thus also gaining insights into the formation of our entire Solar System.
JUNO is a NASA mission. The University of Zurich is heavily involved, with Ravit Helled as co-investigator.
ExoMars
The “Exobiology on Mars” programme searches for traces of life on Mars. So far there have been two missions, ExoMars 2016 and ExoMars 2022.
The mission is a collaboration between ESA and the Russian space agency Roskosmos. Among other things, the University of Bern contributed the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) camera for ExoMars 2016.
BepiColombo
The BepiColombo mission has been travelling since 2018 and will land on Mercury in 2025. The mission consists of two spacecraft. One of these, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), is for remote sensing of the planet, while the other, the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (also known as Mio), is designed to study the magnetospheric interaction between the planet and the solar wind. BepiColombo is a collaboration between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Instruments developed at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern are on board the space probe.
JUICE mission
JUICE (JUpiter ICy moon Explorer) is also a Jupiter mission and focusses on the three Galilean icy moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. Among other things, researchers want to gain a better understand of these moons and whether they could harbour life, how Jupiter's atmosphere and magnetic field are structured and how the latter interacts with the moons.
JUICE is an ESA mission and is equipped with eleven instruments. One of these is the Neutral and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NIM) which was built at the University of Bern. NIM will collect data on the composition of Jupiter's atmosphere. The University of Bern has also collaborated on two other instruments: the GALA laser altimeter and SWI submillimetre wave instrument. The SWI measures the stratosphere of Jupiter and the atmospheres and surfaces of Jupiter's icy moons.
The Ariane 5 rocket carrying the JUICE spacecraft lifted off from the spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Friday, 14 April 2023. This marked the beginning of a more than eight-year journey to the Jupiter system.
