Thales Alenia Space is well pleased with the decision by French space agency CNES, in agreement with its national partners, to extend the operation of the Corot satellite for an additional three years. As the industrial responsible on this program, Thales Alenia Space supplied the Proteus platform, developed jointly with CNES, and the Corotel afocal telescope, and was responsible for satellite integration and tests. The satellite was launched on December 27, 2006 for a mission initially estimated at three years.

“We are delighted with this decision, that reflects not only the satellite’s excellent health, but also the importance to scientists of its discoveries,” said Patrick Maute, General Manager, Optical Observation and Science  of Thales Alenia Space. “Our company deployed cutting-edge expertise and called on very high-tech solutions to successfully complete this ambitious program, which marks a world first. The Proteus platform has now amply proven its excellent reliability, especially through the Jason-1 satellite, which has also exceeded its initial design life of three years, and is still in operation after eight years in orbit. The telescope on the Corot satellite embodies Thales Alenia Space’s unrivaled expertise in space optics (which underpinned the success of the complex Helios and Pleiades development programs). The extremely demanding stray-light rejection performance required for this mission, as well as the instrument’s very high degree of photometric precision had never been achieved by any other spacecraft.”