The PLATO Mission Conference 2021: Exploring exoplanets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars will be held from 11 to 15 October 2021 as an online event. This conference aims to present the status of the PLATO mission to the community, both in terms of satellite development and scientific preparation, and to bring together experts working on observations and theory associated with any of the PLATO science objectives.

The major themes of the Conference are:

• PLATO development status
• Selection of the PLATO sky fields and the PLATO Input Catalogue
• Light-curve analysis for detection and characterisation of long-period small planets
• Asteroseismology and stellar characterisation
• Advances in modelling stellar internal structure and evolution
• Stellar activity
• Ground-based observations for the confirmation and mass determination of planets
• Long-period small planets and habitability
• Planetary structure, composition, evolution, and architecture of planetary systems
• PLATO in the context of Kepler/K2, TESS, CHEOPS, JWST, Roman Space Telescope, Ariel, and large ground-based observatories
• Complementary science topics benefitting from PLATO high-precision photometry

For further information please visit the Conference Website.

PLATO Week 10 will now be held remotely from the 26th to 28th of May 2020.

PW10 is being organised by the Konkoly Observatory of the Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences and the PMC.
Owing to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, the decision has been made to move the meeting online; the conference will be conducted using WebEx (access provided by ESA).

The schedule for the meeting has been updated following this change. Please go to the PLATO Week 10 website for more details. A detailed agenda for the meeting will be available nearer the time.

The first major review of PSM activity, the L2/L3 Requirements Review, was closed-out on the 9th of March 2020.

This internal review, which was run completely by the PLATO Mission Consortium, assessed the requirements for the L2 & L3 data processing pipelines, the systems that take PLATO light curves and identify planetary candidates, confirm planetary systems, and derive stellar properties.

Although a large number of action items remain to be completed, this review is considered a success by all involved. Thank you to everyone who took part, in any capacity.

PLATO Week 10 will be taking place from the 26th to the 28th May 2020, and will be held in Budapest, Hungary.

As usual, the meeting will be preceded by an ESA progress meeting (invitation only).

More details are available on the PW10 website.

The first major review of PSM activity, the L2/L3 Requirements Review, successfully kicked-off on Friday 29th November. This internal review, which is run completely by the PLATO Mission Consortium and has only limited input from ESA, is assessing the requirements for the L2 & L3 data processing pipelines, the systems that take PLATO light curves and identify planetary candidates, confirm planetary systems, and derive stellar properties.

The initial phase of the review concludes on the 20th of December, and the review runs until the end of February 2020.

PLATO Week 9 will be taking place from the 9th to the 11th October 2019, and will be held in Marseille, France.

As usual, the meeting will be preceded by an ESA progress meeting (invitation only).

More details are available on the PW9 website.

The first batch of charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to be flown on ESA’s PLATO space observatory was accepted by ESA last month. This is an important milestone on the road to creating a groundbreaking spacecraft that will detect Earth-sized exoplanets in orbit around distant stars.

The CCDs will be a key element of the largest digital combined camera ever flown in space. This camera will receive light from 26 telescopes, all mounted on a single satellite platform. The first 20 CCDs for PLATO were accepted for delivery by ESA in mid-March, and the remaining 84 detectors will be delivered in further batches before the end of 2020.

“The delivery of the first detectors at this time is important because it secures the early availability of one of the key elements of the whole mission,” said Bengt Johlander, the PLATO Payload Manager for ESA.

For more details, see ESA's press release: http://sci.esa.int/plato/61280-delivery-of-first-detectors-for-platos-exoplanet-mission

On March 27th a successful close-out meeting for the Payload Preliminary Design Review (P/L-PDR) was held at ESTEC, with ESA certifying that PLATO has achieved all the criteria necessary to pass the review.

The PMC leadership would like to thank the whole team for the enormous effort they made. It was only possible to reach this important milestone thanks to the consistently high motivation and desire to succeed that is present at all levels of the consortium.

In 2021 we will have the Payload Critical Design Review (P/L-CDR) and with the Camera Series Production Readiness milestone to deal with. Before that, however, we must complete the ongoing Unit PDRs.