We know for sure that there are a whole host of planets orbiting an endless number of stars. Finding a twin earth, however, i.e. a planet with a similar mass and dimension to our own planet, orbiting an inhabitable zone of a sun-like star, represents one of this century’s stiffest challenges.

GMV, forming part of the industrial team under the responsibility of OHB, is in charge of requirement analysis, critical review of the mission analysis, fast camera characterization and operations support of the European Space Agency’s PLATO mission (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars).

PLATO, which is a medium-sized mission of ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-25 Programme, will address two key themes of Cosmic Vision: what are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life, and how does the Solar System work?

PLATO will be launched on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou for an initial six-year mission. It will operate from Lagrangian point L2, a virtual point in space 1.5 million km beyond Earth as seen from the Sun. From there it will observe up to a million relatively nearby stars, searching for tiny, regular dips in brightness as their planets transit in front of them, temporarily blocking out a small fraction of the starlight. To do so it will be fitted with 34 separate small telescopes and cameras.

When coupled with ground-based radial velocity observations, PLATO’s measurements will allow a planet’s mass and radius to be calculated, and therefore its density, giving an indication of its composition. The mission will identify and study thousands of exoplanetary systems, with an emphasis on discovering and characterizing Earth-sized planets and super-Earths in the habitable zone of their parent star – the distance from the star where liquid surface water could exist.
The mission will also investigate seismic activity in the stars, determining such characteristics as mass, radius and age.

PLATO is now striking out along the path opened up by missions like Solar Orbiter, to be launched in 2017 to study the Sun, and Euclid, to be launched in 2020 in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter.