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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:01:38 On 11 June, engineers at OHB’s facilities in Germany joined together the two main parts of ESA’s Plato mission.
They used a special crane to lift Plato’s payload module, housing its 26 ultra-sensitive cameras, into the air and carefully line it up over the service module. The supporting service module contains everything else that the spacecraft needs to function, including subsystems for power, propulsion and communication with Earth.
With millimetre-level precision, the engineers gently lowered the payload module into place. Once perfectly positioned, the team tested the electrical connections.
Finally, they securely closed a panel that connects the payload module to the service module both physically and electronically (seen ‘hanging’ horizontally above the service module in this image). This panel, which opens and closes with hinges, also contains the electronics to process data from the cameras.
Now in one piece, Plato is one step closer to beginning its hunt for Earth-like planets.
In the coming weeks, the spacecraft will undergo tests to ensure its cameras and data processing systems still work perfectly.
Then it will be driven from OHB’s cleanrooms to ESA’s technical heart (ESTEC) in the Netherlands. At ESTEC, engineers will complete the spacecraft by fitting it with a combined sunshield and solar panel module.
Following a series of essential tests to confirm that Plato is fit for launch and ready to work in space, it will be shipped to Europe’s launch site in French Guiana.
The mission is scheduled to launch on an Ariane 6 in December 2026.
Access the related broadcast quality video footage.
ESA’s Plato (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) will use 26 cameras to study terrestrial exoplanets in orbits up to the habitable zone of Sun-like stars.
Plato's scientific instrumentation, consisting of the cameras and electronic units, is provided through a collaboration between ESA and the Plato Mission Consortium. This Consortium is composed of various European research centres, institutes and industries, led by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The spacecraft is being built and assembled by the industrial Plato Core Team led by OHB together with Thales Alenia Space and Beyond Gravity.
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By USH
Some time ago, while visiting the Grand Canyon in Arizona, a photographer captured several short video clips of the landscape. In one of those clips, an unusual anomaly was discovered.
The original footage is only 1.9 seconds long, but within that moment, something remarkable was caught on camera. An unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) flashed across the frame, visible for less than a second, only noticeable when the video was paused and analyzed frame by frame.
The object was moving at an astonishing speed, covering an estimated two to three miles in under a second, far beyond the capabilities of any conventional aircraft, drone, or helicopter.
This isn’t the first time such anomalous flying objects have been observed. Their characteristics defy comparison with known aerial technology.
Some skeptics have proposed that the object might have been a rock thrown into the canyon from behind the camera. However, that explanation seems unlikely. Most people can only throw objects at speeds of 10 to 20 meters per second (approximately 22 to 45 mph). The velocity of this object far exceeded that range, and its near-invisibility in the unedited video suggests it was moving much faster.
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By Space Force
Gen. Mike Guetlein, Vice Chief of Space Operations, visits Kirtland Air Force Base, signaling the base’s growing importance in space innovation, research and national defense.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Instruments in space are helping scientists map wastewater plumes flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the heavily polluted Tijuana River, seen here with the San Diego sky-line to the north. NOAA Proof-of-concept results from the mouth of the Tijuana River in San Diego County show how an instrument called EMIT could aid wastewater detection.
An instrument built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to map minerals on Earth is now revealing clues about water quality. A recent study found that EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) was able to identify signs of sewage in the water at a Southern California beach.
The authors of the study examined a large wastewater plume at the mouth of the Tijuana River, south of Imperial Beach near San Diego. Every year, millions of gallons of treated and untreated sewage enter the river, which carries pollutants through communities and a national reserve on the U.S.-Mexico border before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. Contaminated coastal waters have been known to impact human health — from beachgoers to U.S. Navy trainees — and harm marine ecosystems, fisheries, and wildlife.
For decades scientists have tracked water quality issues like harmful algal blooms using satellite instruments that analyze ocean color. Shades that range from vibrant red to bright green can reveal the presence of algae and phytoplankton. But other pollutants and harmful bacteria are more difficult to monitor because they’re harder to distinguish with traditional satellite sensors.
A plume spreads out to sea in this image captured off San Diego by the Sentinel-2 satellite on March 24, 2023. Both a spectroradiometer used to analyze water samples (yellow star) and NASA’s EMIT identified in the plume signs of a type of bacterium that can sicken humans and animals.SDSU/Eva Scrivner That’s where EMIT comes in. NASA’s hyperspectral instrument orbits Earth aboard the International Space Station, observing sunlight reflecting off the planet below. Its advanced optical components split the visible and infrared wavelengths into hundreds of color bands. By analyzing each satellite scene pixel by pixel at finer spatial resolution, scientists can discern what molecules are present based on their unique spectral “fingerprint.”
Scientists compared EMIT’s observations of the Tijuana River plume with water samples they tested on the ground. Both EMIT and the ground-based instruments detected a spectral fingerprint pointing to phycocyanin, a pigment in cyanobacteria, an organism that can sicken humans and animals that ingest or inhale it.
‘Smoking Gun’
Many beachgoers are already familiar with online water-quality dashboards, which often rely on samples collected in the field, said Christine Lee, a scientist at JPL in Southern California and a coauthor of the study. She noted the potential for EMIT to complement these efforts.
“From orbit you are able to look down and see that a wastewater plume is extending into places you haven’t sampled,” Lee said. “It’s like a diagnostic at the doctor’s office that tells you, ‘Hey, let’s take a closer look at this.’”
Lead author Eva Scrivner, a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut, said that the findings “show a ‘smoking gun’ of sorts for wastewater in the Tijuana River plume.” Scrivner, who led the study while at San Diego State University, added that EMIT could be useful for filling data gaps around intensely polluted sites where traditional water sampling takes a lot of time and money.
EMIT’s Many Uses
The technology behind EMIT is called imaging spectroscopy, which was pioneered at JPL in the 1980s. Imaging spectrometers developed at JPL over the decades have been used to support areas ranging from agriculture to forest health and firefighting.
When EMIT was launched in July 2022, it was solely aimed at mapping minerals and dust in Earth’s desert regions. That same sensitivity enabled it to spot the phycocyanin pigments off the California coast.
Scrivner hadn’t anticipated that an instrument initially devoted to exploring land could reveal insights about water. “The fact that EMIT’s findings over the coast are consistent with measurements in the field is compelling to water scientists,” she said. “It’s really exciting.”
To learn more about EMIT, visit:
https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
Written by Sally Younger
2025-078
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Last Updated Jun 12, 2025 Related Terms
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By Space Force
Secretary of Air Force Troy E. Meink delivers his first letter to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.
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