International
partnership
The overall development strategy assumes that the spacecraft, launch
and operations, as well as a major part of the payload, including in
particular the telescopes will be provided by ESA.
The focal planes, the onboard scientific data treatment, as well as a
participation to the ground segment development, will be provided by a
consortium involving the US, India, and the European scientific
community through national funding by some of ESA member states.
There is a strong interest and expertise in Europe, for instance in
France, Spain, and the UK, for the development of focal planes, as well
as onboard and ground software for this mission.
Outside of national European space agencies, PLATO will collaborate
mainly with NASA (through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL) to bring
to the mission additional resources as well as personnel
experienced in several key areas:
- instrument hardware, and in particular the integrated Proximity
Electronics Modules of the focal planes,
- science operations, with an emphasis on the combination of PLATO data
with pre-launch and post-launch ancillary data,
- scientific contributions, in both exoplanetary and asteroseismology
areas.
A significant participation is also expected from the Indian Space
Agency, ISRO, and a group of scientific institutes in India. This
participation would include the development of the payload central
calculator, a participation to the development of the onboard data
treatment software, as well as a participation to the scientific
exploitation of the data.
In addition to these contributions from the US and India, scientific
contributions from scientists and engineers in Brazil are expected.
