Artistic rendering of ESA's Plato spacecraft in space. Credits: ESA

Ariane 6 will Launch ESA’s Plato Mission in 2026

The first science mission of Ariane 6 will deploy ESA's Plato spacecraft, which will discover and study hundreds of exoplanets orbiting around Sun-like stars

On January 29, during the European Space Conference, ESA and Arianespace signed an agreement for the launch of the Plato mission onboard Ariane 6 in 2026. This will be the first science mission for the new European heavy-lift rocket.

Plato will advance scientific knowledge of planetary systems beyond the Sun. The launch is scheduled for the end of next year on top of an Ariane 62 (two boosters) vehicle from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Ariane 62 for the VA263 mission on the pad at Kourou. Credits: Arianegroup
Ariane 62 for the VA263 mission on the pad at Kourou. Credits: Arianegroup

“This is the first mission that the versatile launcher will send to the Lagrange point 2, 1.5 million km from the launch pad, a new destination for our heavy-lift rocket to show its prowess.”

— Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA Director of Space Transportation


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Seeking life out of the Solar system

PLAnetary Transit and Oscillations of stars (Plato) is a mission developed by the European Space Agency, the third M-class selected under the Cosmic Vision 2015-25 plan.

Plato is a new and important piece of the agency’s exoplanet research and study program, leveraging the work of the Chepos mission. The discoveries will be completed by the findings of ESA’s Gaia and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope.

The mission aims to discover, catalog, and characterize rocky planets orbiting in habitable zones around more than 200,000 Sun-like stars.

Hundreds of these planets will be studied, and their host stars will be analyzed to gather key data about entire planetary systems outside our own. To do so, Pluto will use 26 cameras to enable a combined higher ‘signal-to-noise’ ratio and larger field of view than has been possible with previous missions.

Plato payload module. Credits: OHB
Plato payload module. Credits: OHB

The 2300 kg spacecraft features nine-meter-long solar panels and is composed of two main parts: the payload module, which hosts the cameras, and the service module, which contains all the vital systems for spacecraft operations including a sunshield, propulsion, communication, thermal control, and attitude control systems.

Plato will be placed around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 (L2), 1.5 million kilometers from our planet. The mission has an expected lifetime of four years, with possible extensions up to 8.5 years.

OHB System AG is the prime contractor for the construction of the satellite in cooperation with Thales Alenia Space and Beyond Gravity.


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Francesco Sebastiano Moro

Francesco Sebastiano Moro

Aerospace engineering student at University of Padua, passionate of space and aerospace sector.

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