The mission was highly successful and substantially improved upon observations made by the NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).

The mission provided significant insights into the composition and evolution of the Universe, shedding light on the fundamental physics that governs the cosmos.

The project started in 1996, and it was later renamed in honor of the German physicist Max Planck (1858–1947), who is widely regarded as the originator of quantum theory by deriving the formula for black-body radiation.

The map was of exceptional quality and allowed researchers to measure temperature variations in the CMB with unprecedented accuracy.

The mission had a wide variety of scientific aims, including:[2] Planck had a higher resolution and sensitivity than WMAP, allowing it to probe the power spectrum of the CMB to much smaller scales (×3).

Planck's passive and active cooling systems allow its instruments to maintain a temperature of −273.05 °C (−459.49 °F), or 0.1 °C above absolute zero.

[3] From August 2009, Planck was the coldest known object in space, until its active coolant supply was exhausted in January 2012.

[2] On 13 January 2012, it was reported that the on-board supply of helium-3 used in Planck's dilution refrigerator had been exhausted, and that the HFI would become unusable within a few days.

The PCU is designed to interface with the 30 sections of each solar array, to provide a regulated 28 volt bus, to distribute this power via protected outputs, and to handle the battery charging and discharging.

The Planck satellite rotates at one revolution per minute, with an aim of an absolute pointing error less than 37 arc-minutes.

As Planck is also a survey platform, there is the additional requirement for pointing reproducibility error less than 2.5 arc-minutes over 20 days.

Planck was commanded on 21 October to exhaust its remaining fuel supply; passivation activities were conducted later, including battery disconnection and the disabling of protection mechanisms.

[16] In September 2009, the European Space Agency announced the preliminary results from the Planck First Light Survey, which was performed to demonstrate the stability of the instruments and the ability to calibrate them over long periods.

[23] The Planck team and principal investigators Nazzareno Mandolesi and Jean-Loup Puget shared the 2018 Gruber Prize in Cosmology.

[25] On 21 March 2013, the European-led research team behind the Planck cosmology probe released the mission's all-sky map of the cosmic microwave background.

It is theorised that these ripples gave rise to the present vast cosmic web of galactic clusters and dark matter.

[26][28][31][32][33] Results from an analysis of Planck's full mission were made public on 1 December 2014 at a conference in Ferrara, Italy.