Tests at the ESTEC test center in the Netherlands allowed the intended operating environment to be reproduced
"Plato, located at the Lagrange point L2,will have 26 of these cameras pointing at the same target stars. They will take images every 25 seconds and every 2.5 seconds for the two central cameras for at least two consecutive years to detect tiny shifts in brightness caused by exoplanets passing through these stars."
Yves Levillen, systems engineer at Plato.
Each telescope camera will contain fourmatrices providing 20.3 megapixel images adding up to 81.4 megapixels in normal mode. The 2.11 gigapixel camera for the entire spacecraft is the largest number of pixels in the entire history of space missions.
Far from the sun's brightness, scientists expectwill be able to detect the presence of terrestrial exoplanets on which life could develop as we know it, and even conduct stellar seismology.
But first, the team had to understand that theirthe camera is of high quality. The structural and thermal model of the camera, produced by institutions and companies across Europe, was almost a copy of the flight model, except that its lenses were not optically processed.
"We placed the camera in spaceVTC-1.5 simulator, using liquid nitrogen to maintain temperatures around -80°C. First of all, we wanted to be sure that their thermal model was correct: the camera responded as expected to temperature changes. Another purpose of the testing was to test an innovative temperature-based focusing method.”
Matteo Apolloni from the ESTEC Test Center
To achieve the required high opticalaccuracy, the focal length of each Plato camera will be controlled by very small temperature shifts causing it to expand or contract. A temperature change of just 0.1 ° C with three camera heaters will adjust its focus length by 1 micrometer - thousandth of a millimeter.
Testing was monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a weekweek, ESA Plato mission staff, industry representatives and European Test Services, the company that runs the ESA testing center. They all worked three shifts.
The basic design has now been approved and the scientistswill begin optical testing of engineering models of the camera, as well as data processing, and in the summer there will be a full-scale STM of the Platon spacecraft platform without cameras at the ESTEC Testing Center. Plato is due to launch on Ariane 6 in 2026.
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