The PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars mission (PLATO) is an ESA M3 mission planned to detecting and characterizing extrasolar planetary systems as Earth-like exoplanets orbiting around the habitable zone of bright solartype stars. PLATO consists of 26 cameras (CAM) mounted on the same instrument platform in order to cover a large field of view (FoV) with the highest possible photon detection statistics. Each PLATO CAM consists of a telescope Optical Unit (TOU), the FPA, and the detector read-out Front End Electronics (FEE). The FPA is the structure located at the focal plane position of the CAM that supports four identical CCDs and the mechanical interface parts to match with the TOU and FEE. Due to the critical repeatability aspect of the mission, each FPAs must be identical with very stringent specifications which includes strict opto-mechanical positioning tolerances. Also the number of FPAs that have to be manufactured, integrated and tested at the same time requires a special space industrialization process and an optimized metrology verification due to the very restrictive design and schedule constraints. In order to solve this challenge a flight-representative QM has been developed in order to validate a manufacturing, assembly, integration and verification (AIV) on-ground processes. As well, an innovative metrology system has being developed for improving the alignment and verification under the tightly AIV requirements before, during and after a proper qualified campaign in a very demanding environment. INTA has adapted into an ISO6 cleanroom facility a high accuracy and vast performance non-contact CNC vision dimensional measuring system, and has developed a Ground Support Equipment (GSE) for a real-time alignment step in order to reach that requirements.
PLATO, PLAnetary Transits and Oscillation of stars, is an ESA mission mainly devoted to survey the Galaxy searching for and characterizing Earth-like exoplanets, and their host stars. This will be achieved using continuous and extremely accurate photometry for both exoplanetary transits and asteroseismology analysis. Current design plans to mount 26 cameras in the same instrument bench in order to cover a large field of view with the highest possible photon statistics. Each PLATO camera consists of the telescope (TOU, Telescope Optical Unit), the focal plane assembly (FPA), and the detector and camera read out electronics (FEE). Four CCDs (Charge Coupled Devices) will be included in each FPA, which implies a really delicate assembly and integration verification (AIV) process due to the stringent scientific requirements breakdown into hard engineering ones (among others, CCDs co-alignment in terms of tip and tilt and roll with respect to the optical axis). In the following lines, the FPA current opto-mechanical design is briefly presented and an integration process conceptual proposal is reported on, discussing the error budgets associated to the main requirements to be verified during FPAs AIV, and the main results obtained during the prototype first AIV round.
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