Leonardo SpA is leading an Italian Space Industry Team, funded by ASI, collaborating to the ESA mission PLATO program for the development of the 26 telescopes, that will fly on a single platform, aimed to discover, observe and analyze the exoplanets. The mission is based on a challenging telescope design with peculiar optical performance to be assured at very low operative temperature. The “large” number of telescopes is quite unusual for the production of scientific payload; therefore, it has imposed a change with respect the prototypical manufacturing and test approach as standard for a few Flight Models, addressing the implementation of smart and fast methodologies for the aligning and focusing of the telescopes based on simulation of the as-built data. The paper describes that approach.
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