Final Checks Underway for ESA’s PLATO Telescope
View of PLATO in ESA’s Large Space Simulator (LSS). Credit: ESA.
Artistic representation of PLATO. Credit: ESA.
News from Mar 23, 2026
ESA’s planet‑hunting mission PLATO has just entered a crucial phase of pre‑launch verification and continues to make steady progress towards its scheduled liftoff
PLATO was placed in ESA’s Large Space Simulator (LSS) on 18 February, and since early March, the spacecraft has been exposed to space‑like vacuum conditions and extreme temperatures to validate all subsystems before launch; a striking photo shows the satellite’s 26 ultrasensitive cameras moments before the chamber was bolted closed. The LSS (15 m high, 10 m wide) reproduces deep‑space conditions with a cryo‑vacuum (pressure ~a billion times lower than at sea level). It also uses liquid‑nitrogen cooling and powerful heaters that drive the Sun‑facing side to reach very high temperatures of about +160 °C while the cameras are kept near −80 °C. PLATO will emerge from the simulator at the end of March to continue final preparations. Read more details here:
Next steps on the horizon: Launch, trajectory and science plan
PLATO is on track for an Ariane 6 launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana in January 2027. After a roughly one‑month cruise, it will reach its target destination at about 1.5 million km from Earth in the direction opposite the Sun, where it will join missions such as ESA’s space telescope Euclid and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Equipped with 26 cameras that can monitor more than 150,000 bright stars simultaneously, PLATO will stare at the same sky region for a minimum of two years (the mission lasts at least four years) to detect Earth‑like planets around Sun-like stars. However, to protect it from solar radiation, the spacecraft will be rotated by 90° roughly every three months, keeping its solar arrays facing the Sun. An animation of PLATOs trajectory and orientation as well as more details can be found here:
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2026/03/Plato_s_journey_to_L2
The PLATO mission’s international scientific consortium is led by Prof. Dr. Heike Rauer, planetary scientist at the Institute of Geological Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Contributions to the mission are supported by scientists from the Freie Universität Berlin.
The contributions by Freie Universität Berlin to the PLATO mission are supported by German Federal Government via the German Space Agency at DLR (Grants 50OO1401, 50OP2103 and 50OP2104).