PLATO 2.0 
An European Space Agency (ESA) Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Project
 
 

PLATO 2.0 (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a medium class (M class) mission studied in the framework of the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program.

 

PLATO is an acronym, but also the name of a famous greek philosopher.

According to Simplicium (VI century a.C.), Plato posed to the astronomers of the Academia the following question: <<What about those uniform and regular motions, assuming which the errant stars orbits are saved ? ».

PLATO was looking for a physical law accounting for the orbit of planets (errant stars)  and contemporary able to satisfy the philosopher’s needs for “uniformity” and “regularity” .

Web-Site Content: You find here information on the project, its science objectives and the organization of the PLATO 2.0 consortium. The internal documents produced by the PMC are available elsewhere.

ESA/SRE(2011)13 - The RedBook

Project History

PLATO was proposed to European Space Agency (ESA) by a team of scientists in response to the Call for ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. It was selected together with other five M class missions from 52 proposals in the fall of 2007.

After a first assessment study carried out at the ESA/CDF the PLATO mission has been subject of further studies:

  1. •assessment studies of the whole mission have been carried out independently by two industries;

  2. •an assessment study of the PLATO payload (telescopes, detectors, on board and ground based data handling)  has been provided by a Consortium of Research Institutes and Universities: the PLATO Payload Consortium (PPLC).


The Assessment Phase activities have be completed in the course of 2009, and in January 2010 the Advisory Structure to the Science Programme of ESA has recommended PLATO for the  Definition Phase, in support of the decision by the Science Programme Committee eventually taken in February 2010.


Since May 2010, PLATO has entered the Definition Phase.

Two industries have consolidated the study of the Service Mission Module, while the PLATO Mission Consortium (PMC), funded by national agencies, have designed the PLATO Payload, the Data Center and prepared the Science activities required for the mission implementation.



Project Status

PLATO has successfully completed the Phase A in Jun 2011.

On Oct 4th 2011 the ESA Science Programme Committee decided to maintain the PLATO mission, not selected for a flight opportunity on this occasion, as a possible competitor for a future flight opportunity. The mission name changed in PLATO 2.0 for the M3 selection process to emphasize the advanced science case.

The scientific goals of PLATO 2.0 are:

  1. •reveal the interior of planets and stars

  2. •detect planets over the whole sky, including terrestrial planets in the habitable zone

  3. •constrain planet formation and evolution

  4. •provide accurate ages of planetary systems

  5. •provide targets for atmosphere spectroscopy



Key strategy for PLATO 2.0 is the observation of a large sample of bright stars. In this way PLATO 2.0 is able to completely characterize the discovered planets and their hosting stars. Specifically, the characterization includes the seismic analysis of the parent stars in order to precisely determine their mass, radius and age, i.e. those fundamental parameters that are required to precisely derive the same quantities for the hosted planets.



PLATO ESA website

Contacts:


For information on PLATO 2.0 ask:

Heike.Rauer at dlr.de  - PMC Lead

D.Pollacco at warwick.ac.uk - PSPM Lead

PLATO 2.0 presentations for download

Moreover, the planetary systems discovered by PLATO 2.0, being bright, can be followed-up spectroscopically from ground and space based telescopes in order to: 

  1. •Complete the characterization of the orbital parameters

  2. •Measure the physicochemical properties of planets and their atmospheres.



For the web-site content ask:

Isabella.Pagano at inaf.it