The first round of test on PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) spacecrafts has been completed. Plato is an ESA medium-class mission whose objective is to find and study a large number of extrasolar planetary systems, with properties similar to the Earth.
CIRA's Space qualification Laboratory has successfully accomplished a test campaign, on behalf of Kayser Italia, on the MTD model of the Instrument Control Unit (ICU), the mission's scientific payload computer. Kayser Italia was commissioned by the Italian Aerospace Agency to develop and manufacture the ICU hardware and part of the software. Success in vibrational tests and the measurements of the inertial properties, will allow DDSA Kyser to continue in the ICU development process up to the PLATO launch into the space, scheduled in 2026.
The ICU, tested at CIRA laboratory, is part of the data elaboration system of the mission's scientific payload and uses 18 telescopes in combined observation. The scientific data will be gathered, compressed and transmitted to the Earth by the ICU. The ICU will be in charge of the management of telemetry, of the remote controls from and to the Service Module (SVM) and of the collection of the housekeeping data from the other payload units.
Kayser Italia is a Small Medium Enterprise private independent aerospace system engineering company owned by Zolesi's family. Kayser Italia is primarily involved in the design, development, manufacture and testing of systems and components used for scientific and technological research activities on board of space platforms, including the International Space Station (ISS).
June 24, 2021
