The Planck LFI Space Mission

Planck is a ESA space mission launched the 14 May 2009. Planck is aimed at full sky observation of CMB anisotropy and polarization with resolution (10 arcmin), sensibility (about 1 uK) and range of frequency (from 30 to 900 GHz) never reach, thanks at its bolometer array and radiometers located in the focus of a 1.5m telescope. The Planck sensibility is 4 – 10 time better than the WMAP NASA satellite. Planck is operating from the second lagrangian point at about 1.5 million Km from the Earth, to avoid spurious effect due to Earth, moon and Sun. The satellite carry onboard two instrument HFI High Frequency Instrument, IAS (France) LFI - Low Frequency Instrument, IASF- Bologna (Italy). LFi observe the sky in the range 3- - 70 Ghz with differential radiometer pseudo correlated coupled with the telescope troughs 11 antenna. The instruments are passively cooled at 50k, then using the "Sorption Cooler" to 20k and till 0.1 thanks to the dilution cooler. The systematic effect has been minimized during the project, the eventual residual have been detected in the analysis phase and then removed from the data.
The planck project already conclude its operations in October 2013 when it was injected in a stable Earth – Sun Orbit. The nominal mission, started the 14 august 2009, just after the CPV (Commissioning Performance Verification phase) and end the 27/11/2010, was followed by a first extension , 28 November 2010 – December 2011, and subsequently by a second extension, December 2011 – October 2013, where the Italian instrument (LFI) operated alone because the French instrument end, as foreseen, the capability to cool its system at 0.1 K.

At the moment two data release has been published (PR1 and PR2) and are available at the following link:
http://pla.esac.esa.int/pla/

Those releases contain all the frequency sky maps observed both in temperature and polarization,all the identified foregrounds and the final CMB map. Discussion on parameter results extracted from the maps and the data process applied was published in more than 180 scientific papers listed at the following link:
http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/planck/publications

The last release is foreseen in the 2016. The last wave of Planck paper will be published at the time the 2016 data will be released.

INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste (INAF-OATS) is responsible of the realization/ operation of the DPC (data Processing centre) that has the responsibility to:

  • Operate the LFI Instrument
  • Acquire in a daily base the data
  • Analyse the data till the creation of Scientific products (maps, catalogue, Timelines)
  • Deliver the products to ESA to be delivered to the Scientific community.

The LFI DPC will continue its work on Planck LFI data for the entire 2016 when the last release is foreseen.

 

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Link:
http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/planck
http://www.satelliteplanck.it/
http://pla.esac.esa.int/pla/
http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/planck/publications