On January 29, 2025, during the European Space Conference in Brussels, Belgium, the European Space Agency (ESA) signed a launch agreement for its scientific mission, Plato (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars). ESA's Director of Science, Carole Mundell, Director of Space Transportation, Toni Tolker-Nielsen, and Arianespace Chief Commercial Officer, Steven Rutgers, participated in the formal agreement.
Plato aims to identify potentially habitable planets orbiting stars similar to the Sun and will conduct detailed studies of thousands of exoplanets, focusing on terrestrial ones.
The mission is scheduled to launch aboard an Ariane 6 rocket with two boosters from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana at the end of 2026. It will be positioned in orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Toni Tolker-Nielsen noted, “This is the first science mission that our new rocket Ariane 6 will launch,” emphasizing the significance of this mission as a new destination for the heavy-lift rocket.
Carole Mundell highlighted the reliability of Arianespace in delivering ESA's science missions into deep space, stating, “It comes naturally to launch Plato on Europe's newest rocket, confident that it will take our spacecraft exactly where it must be.”