European COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits satellite, designed to detect transits of planets down to earth size as they pass in front of their stars, and convection currents on stellar surfaces. The satellite was to use its 27-cm-diameter telescope to scan 120,000 stars during its 30-month mission.

The COROT satellite consisted of :

• A Proteus bus , designed for 500 kg class satellites operating in low earth orbit. COROT was the third mission to use this platform and the associated generic ground control segment after Jason-1 and Calipso.
• The scientific payload, consisting of a 2 mirrors off axis telescope, a visible-range wide field camera, and avionics and software that handled the aperture photometry processing and calculated the angle error measurement data for the platform in fine pointing mode.

Corot had a pointing accuracy of 0.5 arcsec and could downlink 1.5 Gbit of telemetry per day. It would operate in a pure (not sun-synchronous) polar circular orbit (90-degree inclination) at an altitude of 896 km. During alternating 20 and 150 day observation runs the spacecraft would be 3-axis stabilized with asterocentric pointing. The jitter of stars as received by the detector was then less than 0.5 arcsec (0.2 pixel). The seismology channel provided the platform with the angular data feeding the attitude control system.

Design Life: 30 months. Length: 4.10 m (13.40 ft). Basic Diameter: 1.99 m (6.52 ft). Mass: 630 kg (1,380 lb). Payload: 300 kg (660 lb). Spacecraft delta v: 90 m/s (295 ft/sec). Electrical System: Solar cells. Electric System: 0.53 average kW.

• 2006 December 27 - Corot - Launch Site: Baikonur. Launch Vehicle: Soyuz. Mass: 640 kg (1,410 lb). Perigee: 900 km (550 mi). Apogee: 902 km (560 mi). Inclination: 90.00 deg.

  European COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits satellite, designed to detect transits of planets down to earth size as they pass in front of their stars, and convection currents on stellar surfaces. The satellite was to use its 27-cm-diameter telescope to scan 120,000 stars during its 30-month mission. This was the first flight of the Soyuz-2 booster with the improved RD-0124 third stage engine.