Announcement of Opportunity for Community Scientists in the PLATO mission
11 April 2018
The purpose of this Announcement of Opportunity (AO) is to solicit proposals for Community Scientists in the PLATO mission. This AO is open to scientists affiliated with institutes located in ESA Member States. Scientists involved in the PLATO Mission Consortium management (programmatic, scientific, or technical) or who are responsible for hardware or software development and procurement activities are not eligible to apply.PLATO aims at finding and studying a large number of extrasolar planetary systems, with emphasis on the properties of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around solar-like stars. By determining the bulk properties of exoplanets, PLATO provides the means to explore the diversity of planets which in turns yields constraints on planet formation models. The mission objectives also include the investigation of seismic activity in stars, enabling precise characterisation of a planet's host star, including its age.
Through this AO ESA will appoint up to two Community Scientists who will join the PLATO Science Working Team. The main responsibility of the Community Scientists will be to advise ESA on the means to optimise the use of PLATO data by the general scientific community. This includes looking after the interests of the scientific community involved in the PLATO complementary science programmes. In addition, the Community Scientists will be expected to provide support to the communications activities of ESA.
Full details of this AO, including all documentation and the submission forms, are on the dedicated AO home page at:
https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/plato-cs-2018
Schedule
| Event | Date |
| Date of AO release | 11 April 2018 |
| Due date for mandatory Letter of Intent | 26 April 2018, 12:00 (noon) CEST |
| Due date for proposals | 23 May 2018, 12:00 (noon) CEST |
| Appointment of Community Scientists | 3rd quarter of 2018 |