The Planck Satellite: Status & Perspectives

TL;DR

The paper reviews the status, technological advancements, and scientific outlook of the Planck satellite mission launched in 2009, highlighting its objectives, achievements, and future potential in cosmology.

Contribution

It provides an update on the technological progress, instrument performance, and scientific prospects of the Planck mission since its inception in 1996.

Findings

Successful launch and deployment of the satellite

Technological breakthroughs in instrumentation

Promising scientific results and outlook

Abstract

Planck was successfully launched on May 14th, 2009, from the Kourou space port, in French Guyana. After recalling the objectives that we set out - back in 1996 - to fulfill with this project, I recall some of the technological breakthroughs which needed to be made and report on the exciting scientific outlook of the project in light of the knowledge we now have of the actual performances of the two on-board instruments. I also include one of our more recent results even though it was not yet available at the time of the conference.