Affiliated Facilities and Instruments

The Center for Space and Habitability has a close relationship with the Space Research & Planetary Sciences Division (WP), shares many of its logistical structures and is affiliated to its set of space missions and hardware projects. CSH also leads the SAINT-EX project and its ground-based observatory, and is home to the ESA mission CHEOPS and the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS.

As part of its outreach activities, the CSH also manages the Stellarium Gornergrat, a telescope and outreach facility dedicated to educate the public.

SAINT-EX Observatory

The SAINT-EX Observatory is a fully robotic facility in Mexico, hosting a 1-metre Ritchey-Chretien telescope. SAINT-EX—Search And characterIsatioN of Transiting EXoplanets—has two main science goals: (1) Search for terrestrial planets orbiting ultra-cool stars, similar to the TRAPPIST-1 system, and (2) Ground-based support for the ESA CHEOPS space mission.

SAINT-EX's first light took place in January, 2019 and it has been operational since.

Read More on the SAINT-EX Website

CHEOPS Satellite

CHEOPS, the first S-class ESA mission, was successfully launched on December 18, 2019. CHEOPS—CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite—is a small photometric observatory which operates in a low Earth orbit. It is the first mission dedicated to search for transits by means of ultrahigh precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets.

CHEOPS' first light took place on January 29, 2020, and it has been operational since.

Read More on the CHEOPS Website

Stellarium Gornergrat

Located within the existing facilities of the High Alpine Research Stations Jungfraujoch & Gornergrat Foundation, the Stellarium Gornergrat is Switzerland’s first educational telescope and was set up in one of the best locations for astronomical observations in the whole of Central Europe. The Stellarium is devoted to outreach and pedgogy in order to bring astronomy into the classrooms.

The Stellarium began operating as an outreach facility on June 01, 2017 and has been operational since.

Read More on the Stellarium Gornergrat Website