The European Space Agency’s upcoming planet finder, the PLATO spacecraft, has been successfully transported to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) site in the Netherlands. There it will receive its final parts, the solar panels and sunshield. Afterwards, the spacecraft will be rigorously tested, including tests in a large vacuum chamber that simulates the extreme conditions in space.

PLATO is scheduled to launch at the end of 2026 and will begin its quest of identifying potentially Earth-like exoplanets around sun-like stars in early 2027. The mission’s international scientific consortium is led by Professor Heike Rauer, planetary scientist at the Institute of Geological Sciences and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The mission’s preparation is supported by scientists at the Freie Universität Berlin.

The contributions by Freie Universität Berlin to the PLATO mission are supported by the German Space Agency at DLR on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag (Grants 50OO1401, 50OP2103 and 50OP2104).

 

Contact: Prof. Dr. Heike Rauer, Planetary Science and Remote Sensing Group, Institute of Geological Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, and German Aerospace Center (DLR), Email: heike.rauer[at]fu-berlin.de