• Mechanical qualification tests of the camera, at Intespace, on the 15th of Decembre 2004.
   

• 7th CoRoT WEEK from the 14th to the 17th of December 2004 in Granada (Spain).
   

• Delivery of the Flight Model of the afocal telescope by Alcatel Cannes, on the 9th of Decembre 2004.
   

• The 5th of November 2004, Key Point of the CoRoT Mission Center industrial specifications, in Madrid.
   

You will find more pictures of this event in the "MEDIA GALLERY" menu.

• October, 29th to November 2nd 2004, first CoRoT workshop in Brazil
   

Organized by José Renan de Medeiros and Eduardo Janot Pacheco, Brazilian Co-Investigators of the CoRoT mission, this Workshop in Natal has been the opportunity, in a warm and welcoming atmosphere, to present in details the CoRoT experiment to the future Brazilian users' community, to go through the research activities held in Brazil in seismology (mainly, behaviour of young stars) and mechanics of the planetary systems as well as to give a report on the scientific and technical Brazilian contributions.

You will find more pictures of this event in the "MEDIA GALLERY" menu.

During this workshop, the CNES project team was invited by INPE to visit the site in Natal for the installation of the CoRoT secondary ground station.
This earth terminal will be used to increase the amount of scientific telemetry data during the observing runs, to reach 1.5 Gbits per day instead of 1 Gbits. This additional telemetry will make it possible to download the complete set of asteroseismology targets and to oversample up to 500 stars of the exoplanet channel.

• October 2004, 5th, CoRoT mission presentation during the 55th International Astronautical Congress (Vancouver BC, Canada)
   

Download the paper presented during the congress: CoRoT Mission Engineering: cost-effective solutions for stellar photometry in low earth orbit.

• From September 2004, 30th to October 2004, 4th, CoRoT team visited the University of British Columbia (Vancouver BC, Canada)
   

The MOST and CoRoT project teams met to start the technical and scientifical exchanges decided by the 12th CoRoT scientific board.
The MOST satellite is a canadian microsatellite dedicated to the photometric study of the stellar microvariability. The instrument, whose concept is very different from CoRoT (15 cm telescope with Fabry lenses network), was developed under the responsibility of Jaymie Matthews, professor at UBC. MOST was launched in June 2003 by Rockot and has already observed over 40 stars.

You will find more pictures of this event in the "MEDIA GALLERY" menu.

The scientific cooperation between the two projects aims at in particular:

• The exchange of astrophysical models and stellar signal analysis tools.
• The delivery by MOST of telemetry data to test the CoRoT calibrations and to validate the models of satellite interaction with Earth's environment (for ex: radiation effects in the South-Atlantic anomaly, Earth magnatic field effect on the attitude control system, orbital and seasonal variations of the straylight from the Earth).
• Information exchange about the expected behaviour and the actually observed behaviour of the main star types to be studied by CoRoT, before their final selection. Within this framework, in the next months, MOST could observe some of the CoRoT targets located in the Milky Way center zone.

Click on the logo to visit the
University of British Columbia MOST web site:

• The 25th of August 2004, first pictures of the EM camera at IAS
   

• First mechanical qualification tests of the upper baffle, on the 17th of August 2004 at CSL
   

• Qualification model delivery of the upper baffle, on the 9th of July 2004 at ESTEC
   

• Ground control segment definition key point, on the 24th of June 2004
   

• Venus transit before the Sun, on the 8th of June 2004
   

During the morning of the 8th of June 2004, Venus passed between the Earth and the Sun, thus inducing the apparition of a small black spot which moved across the surface of the Sun from one side to the other.
This phenomenon, very rare, lasted 6 hours and was visible anywhere in France, with the condition that you have sufficiently protected your eyes.
This event, called transit, illustrates perfectly the method used by CoRoT for its exoplanets research program. It is the periodical attenuation of the light signal of the observed stars by CoRoT that will reveal the presence of planets, each time that the orbit plane of those planets is in the observation direction of the satellite.

For more detailed information you can visit the following sites:
http://www.vt-2004.org (ESO web site)
http://www.imcce.fr/vt2004/fr/fiches.html

• During the Venus transit before the Sun, the Ministre délégué à la recherche, M. François d'Aubert, came to visit the Meudon Observatory.
  Mr François d'Aubert and Mrs Annie Baglin had the opportunity to discuss the technical and scientific stakes of the CoRoT mission.
   

• Mechanical qualification tests of the equipment bay, on the 26th of May 2004 at CSL
   

• 6th CoRoT WEEK from the 17th to the 19th of May 2004 in Orsay.
   

• Instrument Critical Design Review on the 11th and 12th of May 2004.
   

• User Ground Segment Preliminary Design Review the 6th of May 2004.
   

• Delivery by Thales Alenia Space of the telescope structure on the 10th of March 2004. Beginning of the afocal integration.
   

• Delivery by SONACA of the equipments case structure on the 9th of March 2004.
   

• Satellite Preliminary Design Review on the 27th of January 2004