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Project main steps
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GAIA is an astronomy mission, sixth corner stone of the scientific programme of the European Space Agency including the missions Rosetta, Herschel, Planck, Lisa and BepiColombo.
Its mission is extremely ambitious, it is to map a part of our galaxy by positionning and characterizing one billion stars or other astronomical objects. Beside this "astronomical" quantity objective, GAIA also has ambitious precise positionning objectives: from 300 µas (micro arc-second) for the less bright stars (magnitude 20) to 7 µas for the brightest (magnitude 12); by comparison 24 µas corresponds to the thickness of a hair at 1000 km!
GAIA will realise the mapping of our galaxy in three dimensions, by estimating the distances of the stars to the Earth and their own speed. Beyond this astrometry mission d'astrométrie, GAIA will probably discover and inventory tens of thousands of objects unknown to this day: brown and white dwarfs, supernovae, dwarf planets and asteroids of the solar system... and the awaited exoplanets.
CNES is committed to realise a part of the scientific processing for the scientific community and the ESA.
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Latest update 08/12/2011
Before reproducing any containt of this web site, please consult the Rights
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December 2011 
Gaia deploys its sunshield. More...
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September 2011
Gaia mirrors ready to shine. More...
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August 2011
Payload Module vibration testing completed at Intespace, Toulouse. More...
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July 2011
The detectors mosaic composing GAIA eye was assembled at Astrium facilities in Toulouse. More...
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January 2011
DPC softwares delivery. Beginning of system tests.
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June 2013
Launch, Beginning of transfer toward Lagrange L2 point
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End-2013
End of the In-Flight Commissioning, beginning of the operational processing at DPC
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2018
End of the in-flight mission, beginning of the "Extended Mission" precessings
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2020
End of the scientific mission, publication of final results.
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Gaia, the map of the sky in 3D
Download the Podcasts:
1st part - 2nd part (in french) |
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