Swedish contribution to ESA mission PLATO

The PLATO mission is an ESA M-sized mission due for launch in late 2026 (delayed from earlier 2024).

It is designed to do accurate and long-term photometry of up to a million stars spread over half the sky, enabling the detection and characterisation of exoplanets as well as detailed studies of the stars themselves, which together with Gaia will bring us into an era of ultra-high precision stellar astrophysics.

In contracts 89/14, 65/16, and 71/19, we received funding from SNSA to participate in the PLATO mission by contributing filters, and also to participate in several work packages.

The filters have now been manufactured and we here ask to fund the manpower required to continue the involvement in PLATO activities, mainly to manage the Swedish participation, attend meetings and participate in the on-going planning of the PLATO mission.