Assessment Of PLATO Science Performance

The PLATO mission is scheduled for launch early 2027. In this paper we present an overview of the performance drivers for the mission at the time where all flight models of the cameras have been tested and integrated on the optical bench.

The PLATO consortium needs an estimate of the planet detection yield to dimension the ground-based radial velocity follow-up resources. We provide updated estimates on the yield of planet detections that can be expected from the mission under certain assumptions.

As of today, large uncertainties remain on the planet occurrence rates, especially for small planets in long-period orbits, and on our ability to detect these planets in the presence of stellar variability and instrumental noise.

To partially overcome these limitations, we compare results using different planet occurrence rates, detectability rates, and we include an estimate on the expected contribution of stellar variability to the noise budget. The final detection yield of PLATO will provide constraints to planet occurrence rates which in turn will help constraining planet formation models.

Sketch of the camera arrangement on the optical bench. The groups of NCAMs are 9.2° offset from the Z axis of the payload, which is co-aligned with the F-CAMs. Credit: ESA. — astro-ph.EP

Juan Cabrera, Heike Rauer, Reza Samadi, Valerio Nascimbeni, Anko Boerner, Denis Grießbach, Carsten Paproth, Martin Pertenaıs, Sami-M. Niemi, Szilard Csizmadia, Asier Abreu, Conny Aerts, Suzanne Aigrain, Matthias Ammler-von Eiff, Beatriz Aparicio del Moral, Thierry Appourchaux, David J. Armstrong, Ann Baeke, Gabor G. Balazs, Kevin Belkacem, Aaron Birch, Paz Bluhm, Tobias Boenke, Fabrice Boquet, Sam Bowling, David J. A. Brown, Claude Catala, William J. Chaplin, Margarida S. Cunha, Cilia Daminani, Guy R. Davies, Jeanne Davoult, Francesca De Angeli, Joris De Ridder, Magali Deleuil, Jean-Michel Desert, Jose Javier Diaz Garcia, Anna M. Di Giorgio, Lauren Doyle, Billy Edwards, Philipp Eigmueller, Johannes Eising, Anders Erikson, Yoshi Emilia Nike Eschen, Lorenza Ferrari, Dominic C. Ford, Hugo Garcia Vazquez, Laurent Gizon, Juan Manuel Gomez Lopez, Nicolas Gorius, Marie-jo Goupil, Valentina Granata, John Lee Grenfell, Emmanuel Grolleau, Sascha Grziwa, Tristan Guillot, Diana L. Harrison, Rene Heller, Ana M. Heras, Simon T. Hodgkin, Rik Huygen, Nicholas Jannsen, David Kappel, Peter Klagyivik, Alexander Koncz, Diana Kossakowska, Alvaro Labiano, Kristine Lam, Antonino Francesco Lanza, Monika Lendl, Yves Levillain, Francisco A. Lobon Villanueva, Demetrio Magrin, Luca Malavolta, Silvia Marinoni, Paola Marrese, Cesar Martin Garcia, Miguel Mas Hesse, Pierre Maxted, James McCormac, Andrea Miglio, Marco Montalto, Thierry Morel, Alvaro Morena, Andres Moya, Matteo Munari, Martin B. Nielsen, Rhita-Maria Ouazzani, Isabella Pagano, Carmen Pastor Morales, Gisbert Peter, Jordan Philidet, Giampaolo Piotto, Philippe Plasson, Don Pollacco, Elena Puga, Roberto Ragazzoni, Gonzalo Ramos Zapata, Sara Regibo, Guy T. Rixon et al. (24 additional authors not shown)

Comments: submitted to the special issue on PLATO in Experimental Astronomy
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2604.04818 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2604.04818v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.04818
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Submission history
From: Juan Cabrera
[v1] Mon, 6 Apr 2026 16:22:45 UTC (8,472 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.04818
Astrobiology,