CIRA Space Qualification Laboratory successfully completed an intense test campaign on the ICU (Instrument Control Unit) EQM (Engineering Qualification Model), which is the onboard computer of the scientific payload of the ESA PLATO mission. The ICU has been developed by Kayser Italia, a firm based in Livorno, commissioned by ASI to realize the hardware and part of the onboard software. Vibration and thermal vacuum tests as well as inertial property measurements have been successfully performed. This success allows Kayser Italia to continue developing the ICU until the FM (Flight Model), that will be tested in September 2024 at CIRA. Once the test campaign is concluded, the ICU will be integrated in PLATO spacecraft, whose launch is planned in 2026 from European space base launchpad in Kourou, French Guyana, on board an Ariane 6 rocket. PLATO will fly opposite to the sun and, after 1.5 million km it will orbit around the Sun-Earth system at the Lagrange L2 point.
PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is a space telescope developed for an ESA mission aiming at searching for and characterizing potential exoplanets capable of hosting life forms. PLATO will use transit technique, which involves exploiting light variations detected when a planet passes between a star and the observer.
The ICU tested at CIRA is part of the data elaboration system of the mission scientific payload, that uses 26 cameras to observe the visible light. The scientific data will be recorded, compressed and sent to the Earth by the ICU itself. The ICU will be also in charge of managing the telemetry as well as the remote control from and to the Service Module (SVM) and of recording other payload housekeeping data.
June 2024
