PLATO

The PLATO mission will help us to find an answer to these questions.

PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a space telescope and ESA’s M3 mission of the Cosmic Vision Programme. It will search for transiting extrasolar planets, down to the size of the Earth, orbiting solar-like stars with orbital periods up to one year. The orbits of these planets will be within the habitable zone, which is the region around a star in which a rocky planet with atmosphere can sustain liquid water on its surface. PLATO will obtain high-precision light curves from tens of thousands of stars obtaining accurate measurements of their radii, masses, and ages. Transiting planets will be characterised for their radius from space photometry, and mass, with precise spectroscopic measurements from ground. It will be the first time that planetary systems will be characterised with such degree of detail in such large numbers. PLATO will bring about a radical change in our understanding of stellar interior and evolution, planetary systems, and their capacity to host life.

The PLATO Consortium is under the lead of the PI (Heike Rauer, DLR Institute of Planetary Research) who with her local team provides the overall consortium management together with ESA and contributing partners. PF leads the tasks responsible for the definition of the planet search and planet characterisation tools exploiting the scientific data. PF also leads the team demonstrating and verifying the overall performance of the PLATO project during the different mission phases and leads the team responsible for the instrument calibration and operations. The institute is also in charge of the design and implementation of the front-end electronics of the two fast cameras which are associated with the fine guidance of the spacecraft and the precise measurements of very bright stars.

During 2023 the PLATO Consortium assembled, successfully tested, and delivered 8 flightmodel cameras to the Prime in charge of installing them on the optical bench of the spacecraft. This is a big milestone towards the completion of the mission. The performance achieved so far is according to the expectations.

Hardware Participation of the DLR Institute of Planetary Research

• F-FEE (Front-end electronics) of the fast cameras

Scientific Participation of the DLR Institute of Planetary Research

• Mission science performance definition and validation
• Mission calibration and operation planning
• PLATO science exploitation

Management of the PLATO Mission Consortium by DLR Institute of Planetary Research
PI: Heike Rauer

Further DLR Participation

Institut für Optische Sensorsysteme

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