Journal
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 595, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201629272
Keywords
space vehicles: instruments; Galaxy: structure; astrometry; parallaxes; proper motions; telescopes
Categories
Funding
- DPAC
- Algerian Centre de Recherche en Astronomie, Astrophysique et Geophysique of Bouzareah Observatory
- Austrian FWF Hertha Firnberg Programme [T359, P20046, P23737]
- BELgian federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) through various PROgramme de Developpement d'Experiences scientifiques (PRODEX) grants
- Brazil-France exchange programmes FAPESP-COFECUB
- CAPES-COFECUB
- Chinese National Science Foundation [NSFC 11573054]
- Czech-Republic Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports [LG 15010]
- Danish Ministry of Science
- Estonian Ministry of Education and Research [IUT40-1]
- European Commission [MRTN-CT-2006-033481, PIOF-GA-2009-255267, MTKD-CT-2004-014188, FP7-606740, 264895]
- European Research Council (ERC) [320360]
- European Research Council (ERC) through the European Union's Horizon research and innovation programme [670519]
- European Science Foundation (ESF)
- European Space Agency
- European Space Agency Plan for European Cooperating States (PECS) programme
- Czech Space Office through ESA PECS [98058]
- Academy of Finland
- Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation
- French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) through action Defi MASTODONS
- French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)
- French L'Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) investissements d'avenir Initiatives D'EXcellence (IDEX) programme PSL* [ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02]
- Region Aquitaine
- Universite de Bordeaux
- French Utinam Institute of the Universite de Franche-Comte - Region de Franche-Comte
- French Utinam Institute of the Universite de Franche-Comte - Institut des Sciences de l'Univers (INSU)
- German Aerospace Agency (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V., DLR) [50QG0501, 50QG0601, 50QG0602, 50QG0701, 50QG0901, 50QG1001, 50QG1101, 50QG140, 50QG1401, 50QG1402, 50QG1404]
- Hungarian Academy of Sciences through Lendulet Programme [LP2014-17]
- Hungarian National Research, Development, and Innovation Office [NKFIH K-115709, PD-116175]
- Israel Ministry of Science and Technology [3-9082]
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) [I/037/08/0, I/058/10/0, 2014-025-R.0, 2014-025-R.1.2015, I/008/10/0, 2013/030/I.0]
- Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
- Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) [NWO-M-614.061.414]
- Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA)
- Polish National Science Centre through HARMONIA grant [2015/18/M/ST9/00544]
- Portugese Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) [PTDC/CTE-SPA/118692/2010, PDCTE/CTE-AST/81711/2003, SFRH/BPD/74697/2010]
- Slovenian Research Agency
- Spanish Ministry of Economy MINECO-FEDER [AyA2014-55216, AyA2011-24052, ESP2013-48318-C2-R, ESP2014-55996-C2-R]
- ICCUB (Unidad de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu) [MDM-2014-0369]
- Swedish National Space Board (SNSB/Rymdstyrelsen)
- Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation through the ESA PRODEX programme
- Mesures d'Accompagnement
- Activites Nationales Complementaires
- Swiss National Science Foundation, Early Postdoc. Mobility fellowship
- United Kingdom Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
- United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) [PP/C506756/1, ST/I00047X/1]
- United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) [ST/K000578/1, ST/N000978/1]
- ESO programmes [092.B-0165, 093.B-0236, 094.B-0181, 095.B-0046, 096.B-0162, 097.B-0304]
- United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council
- [PEst-OE/AMB/UI4006/2011]
- [UID/FIS/00099/2013]
- [UID/EEA/00066/2013]
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [UID/EEA/00066/2013, PDCTE/CTE-AST/81711/2003, PTDC/CTE-SPA/118692/2010] Funding Source: FCT
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/M000966/1, 1143608, ST/N004493/1, ST/P002218/1, ST/M001083/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- UK Space Agency [ST/I00064X/1, PP/D006791/2] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Gaia is a cornerstone mission in the science programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The spacecraft construction was approved in 2006, following a study in which the original interferometric concept was changed to a direct-imaging approach. Both the spacecraft and the payload were built by European industry. The involvement of the scientific community focusses on data processing for which the international Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) was selected in 2007. Gaia was launched on 19 December 2013 and arrived at its operating point, the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, a few weeks later. The commissioning of the spacecraft and payload was completed on 19 July 2014. The nominal five-year mission started with four weeks of special, ecliptic-pole scanning and subsequently transferred into full-sky scanning mode. We recall the scientific goals of Gaia and give a description of the as-built spacecraft that is currently (mid-2016) being operated to achieve these goals. We pay special attention to the payload module, the performance of which is closely related to the scientific performance of the mission. We provide a summary of the commissioning activities and findings, followed by a description of the routine operational mode. We summarise scientific performance estimates on the basis of in-orbit operations. Several intermediate Gaia data releases are planned and the data can be retrieved from the Gaia Archive, which is available through the Gaia home page.
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