ESA’s Gaia mission: Successful Launch - Video

ESA’s Gaia mission to survey a billion stars has lifted off, a number of automated sequences were completed and the launch declared a success.

Some 118 seconds after liftoff, the rocket’s four boosters are jettisoned, followed by the fairing at 220 seconds.

The fairing protects Gaia during the turbulent first few minutes of its journey up through Earth’s atmosphere.

Soyuz VS06 transfer to launch zone

Separation of the rocket’s second and third stages was followed by two burns of the Fregat upper stage, before it too separated from Gaia 42 minutes after launch.

This activated Gaia’s automatic sequence, including switching on its transmitters, setting its attitude with respect to the Sun, and deploying the 10.5 m-wide sunshield, starting 88 minutes after launch.

The whole sequence ended 101 minutes after launch, after which mission controllers confirmed completion of the most critical part of the ‘launch and early orbit’ phase of the mission.

Hoisting of upper composite

At this point, Gaia will be on its way to Lagrange Point, ‘L2’, a gravitationally stable point in space some 1.5 million kilometres ‘behind’ Earth as seen from the Sun.

After three course corrections, the spacecraft will arrive in its orbit around L2 about three weeks later.

From there, Gaia will conduct the biggest cosmic census yet, charting the positions, motions and characteristics of a billion stars to create the most precise 3D map of our Milky Way.