PLATO Payload Organization

The payload is developed by the payload mission consortium in Europe under the lead of ESA. The satellite is built by an industrial consortium led by OHB as prime contracted by ESA. The launch of the satellite is planned for 2026. The Payload is developed and verified distributed in Europe by several organization led by ESA, the Pricipal Investigators in Germany at DLR/Institute of Planetary Research, Italy and Spain as shown in the table below. 

The main contributions of the Institute of Optical Sensor Systems are:

  • Payload & Camera Noise performance modelling and verification to ensure fulfilling the mission science requirements
  • Modelling and implementation of the Fine Guidance System to provide high accuracy positioning data for stabilizing the satellite orientation, on-board software development and Verification
  • System Engineering and Verification of the On-Board Data Processing System, incl. hard- and software
  • Several tasks for camera calibration, operation, on-ground data processing