Encyclopedia entry

Gaia

Spacecraft · Europe

Original archive entry. The text, images and links below are kept as they were written.

Astrometry satellite operated by ESA, Europe. Launched 2013.

More at: Gaia.

Chronology

1 event

09:12 GMT - . Launch Site: Kourou. Launch Complex: Kourou ELS. LV Family: R-7. Launch Vehicle: Soyuz-ST-B.

Gaia - . Mass: 2,000 kg (4,400 lb). Nation: Europe. Class: Astronomy. Type: Astronomy satellite. Spacecraft: Gaia. USAF Sat Cat: 39479 . COSPAR: 2013-074A.
European Space Agency Gaia spacecraft to measure the three-dimensional positions and velocities of galactic stars, placed in Lagrangian Point 2. As Gaia rotated, a gigapixel detector array consisting of a complex arrangement of mirrors, CCD's, and photometers measured stellar positions, brightness and color; and Doppler shifts of stars with unprecedented accuracy. The Gaia catalog, when it is available in the 2020's, was expected to put the whole field of astrophysics on a firmer footing. Soyuz ST-B with upper stage Fregat-MT No. 1039 from Kourou-Sinnamary. The Fregat upper stage separated from the Soyuz booster at suborbital velocity. It then made a first burn to a 175 x 175 km parking orbit, then reignited for a 16-minute burn from 09:33 GMT to propel Gaia to a 344 km x 962,690 km x 15.0 deg orbit, on its way to the Sun-Earth L2 point. Gaia fired its own propulsion system of 6 10-N thrusters to raise apogee to around 1.5 million km towards midnight; after a few weeks it entered a Lissajous orbit around the L2 point and began observations. Gaia's data will take years to process and was to result in the best yet catalog of galactic stars.