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Paper: Status of Gaia Science Operations One Year Into the Nominal Mission
Volume: 512, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XXV
Page: 535
Authors: Lammers, U.; Guerra, R.; Hernandez, J.; Siddiqui, H.; Cheek, N.
Abstract: Gaia is ESA's ambitious space astrometry mission. Launched on 19 Dec 2013 into a Lissajous orbit around L2, its main objective is to perform a stellar census of the 1000 million brightest objects in our galaxy (complete to magnitude 20) from which an astrometric catalog of micro-arcsec level accuracy will be constructed. Gaia commenced its nominal mission phase in July 2014 and, 14 months later, has delivered more than a quarter of a Trillion (250×109) astrometric measurements, 55 Billion (55×109) low-resolution, and 6 Billion high-resolution spectra. We critically review the daily operations system which processes the incoming satellite telemetry in near-real time for dissemination to other external processing centres and feeding into the health-monitoring of the satellite. Trial runs of the Astrometric Global Iterative Solution system are taking place in preparation for a first public catalogue release in summer next year and we also report on the status of these activities.
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