ESA Science & Technology - PLATO (original) (raw)

PLATO

PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is the third medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme. Its objective is to find and study a large number of extrasolar planetary systems, with emphasis on the properties of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around solar-like stars. PLATO has also been designed to investigate seismic activity in stars, enabling the precise characterisation of the planet host star, including its age.

News

Planet-hunting eye of PLATO

5 March 2021

Key technology for ESA's exoplanet-hunting PLATO spacecraft has passed a trial by vacuum to prove the mission will work as planned. This test replica of an 80-cm high, 12-cm aperture camera spent 17 days inside a thermal vacuum chamber.

Delivery of first detectors for PLATO's exoplanet mission

11 April 2019The first batch of charge-coupled devices, or CCDs, to be flown on ESA's PLATO space observatory was accepted by ESA last month. This is an important milestone on the road to creating a groundbreaking spacecraft that will detect Earth-sized exoplanets in orbit around nearby stars.

Construction of Europe's exoplanet hunter PLATO begins

4 October 2018The construction of ESA's PLATO mission to find and study planets beyond our Solar System will be led by Germany's OHB System AG as prime contractor, marking the start of the full industrial phase of the project.