Space Missions for Exoplanet Science: PLATO

PLATO is the M3 (medium-class) mission in the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 program, with a planned launch date end 2026. PLATO will carry out transit surveys to detect and characterize planets around bright stars, with special emphasis on small planets orbiting in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. PLATO will enable the determination of the planets’ radii with unprecedented accuracy, and, thanks to the brightness of its targets, also of the planets’ masses through ground-based radial velocity observations. With the asteroseismology analysis of the light curves, it will be possible to characterize planet host stars and to determine their precise ages, covering a large diversity of planetary systems. The PLATO payload consists of 24 telescopes with CCD-based focal planes, which will monitor stars with V > 8 over a wide sky field of view of ~2132°2 per pointing. Two additional “fast” cameras will be used for stars with V ~4–8. The nominal duration of the science operations is 4 years.