PLATO (Exoplanet Telescope)

Liftoff Time

No Earlier Than January, 2027

Mission Details

PLATO (Exoplanet Telescope)

Wiki

PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is a space telescope under development by the European Space Agency. The mission goals are to search for planetary transits across up to one million stars and to discover and characterize rocky extrasolar planets around yellow dwarf stars (like our sun), subgiant stars, and red dwarf stars. The emphasis of the mission is on Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around sun-like stars where water can exist in a liquid state. It is the third medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme and is named after the influential Greek philosopher Plato, the founding figure of Western philosophy, science, and mathematics. A secondary objective of the mission is to study stellar oscillations or seismic activity in stars to measure stellar masses and evolution and to enable the precise characterization of the planet's host star, including its age.

Manufacturer: OHB

Operator: ESA

Sun–Earth L2

1 Payload

2,100 kilograms

HENON

Wiki

Heliospheric Pioneer for Solar and Interplanetary Threats Defence (HENON) is a 12U XL CubeSat mission aimed at performing a demo of Space Weather measurements in Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) for 3-6 hour advanced warning of solar storms. The mission will be a demo of deep space CubeSat technologies, also performing a transfer from Sun-Earth L1/L2 to DRO using electric propulsion.

Manufacturer: Argotec

Operator: ESA

Sun–Earth L2

1 Payload

Rocket

Active
Ariane 62

Active Since 2024

European Space Agency logo

Manufacturer

ESA

Price

$88.00 million

Rocket

Diameter: 5.4m

Height: 62m

Payload to Orbit

LEO: 10,350 kg

GTO: 4,500 kg

Liftoff Thrust

8,370 Kilonewtons

Fairing

Diameter: 5.4m

Height: 20m

Stages

2

Strap-ons

2

Launch Site

ELA-4

Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana, France

Fastest Turnaround

42 days 7 hours