Gaia launch date
Gaia the astrometry mission, sixth corner stone of the scientific programme of the European Space Agency including the missions Rosetta, Herschel, Planck, Lisa and BepiColombo, finally has a launch date: December 19. Gaia, which was first proposed in 1993, is expected to be launched on board a Soyuz rocket from the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) in French Guiana in South America, to begin its mission to map more than one billion stars, creating an astronomical census and map to help scientists chart the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy. The Soyuz 2-1b rocket will...
read moreGaia sunshield deployment test successful
Gaia has passed its critical sunshield deployment test. During the test at Europe’s spaceport in Kourou the shield’s twelve carbon fibre folding frames were opened successfully in the cleanroom. As the Deployable Sunshield Assembly (DSA) was not designed to support its own weight in the one-g environment at Earth’s surface, support cables and counterweights attached to the shield provided a realistic test environment. In space the 10.5 metre diameter sunshield will shade the spacecraft’s telescope from the sun. It will also help to provide a stable and low temperature...
read moreInternational Gaia School, Mexico 2013
From November 3rd to 12th, takes place the international Gaia school in Mexico City with the topic of Galactic Dynamics. This school has been organized by an international group of experts (SOC) that includes a member of the UB Gaia team, Dra. Francesca Figueras. The goal of this school is to give to the students the tools to be prepared for the analysis of the forthcoming Gaia data. Two of our PhD students, Hoda Abedi and Santi Roca-Fàbrega, will attend to this school devoted to the scientific exploitation of Gaia data. This school have been supported by the GREAT European Science...
read moreOperations Rehearsal Campaign # 4
The fourth Gaia DPAC Operations Rehearsal campaign (also known as OR#4) took place during the last week of August and the first week of September. During 10 consecutive days (including the weekend in between), the most critical systems of DPAC were “rehearsed” by feeding about 10 days of mission data simulated with GASS (the Gaia telemetry simulator developed mainly at the UB), containing about 220 million observations of stars. The main focus was on the “daily pipeline” of the Gaia Science Operations Centre (at ESAC, Madrid), where the following systems...
read moreGaia has arrived in French Guiana
Gaia, departed on 23 August 2013 from Toulouse to the French Guiana. Gaia will be launched later this year from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou on a five-year mission to map the stars of the Milky Way with unprecedented precision. Built by Astrium in Toulouse, the Gaia spacecraft took off on board an Antonov 124 heavy-lift aircraft from Toulouse airport with the destination of Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana. The spacecraft was later transported by truck to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, 64 km from Cayenne. “This is a very exciting day for the Gaia mission and all the teams...
read moreGaia-related cartoons
Ever wondered where the Universe came from? Or more importantly, where it’s headed? Voiced by David Mitchell, this series of twelve 60 second animations examines different scientific concepts from the big bang to relativity, from black holes to dark matter. The series also explores the possibility of life beyond Earth and considers why David Bowie is still none the wiser about life on Mars. Related to public engagement activities for Gaia, The Open University in the UK has produced some short Gaia-related cartoons, narrated by David Mitchell (a famous UK comedian), as part of a...
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