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.

NASA: Where will the adventure take us next?

This is a big month for NASA. The Augustine committee, appointed by the White House to review NASA's human space flight programme, is set to release its final report on Thursday.

The panel has created a menu of five plans for the space agency. It has given each 12 scores in various categories (PDF), including science benefits, safety, benefit to the US workforce and schedule.

The committee says it will not assign single overall scores to the options in its final report, so New Scientist has ranked the five plans by adding up the category scores that have been read out by the committee in public meetings. These scores are on a scale of -2 to 2.

So in ascending order, here are the results – and the main pros and cons.

NASA Sending Astronauts to Lagrange Points: Gravity Holes

With doubts brewing about the feasibility of returning to the moon or aiming straight for Mars, another option has emerged for our next steps into space: gravitational "sweet spots" called Lagrange points that lie at least 1 million kilometres away.

A White House-commissioned task force charged with reviewing NASA's spaceflight plans is considering recommending this as part of a "deep space" option in a report expected soon. But why send humans to empty space?

Lagrange, or Lagrangian, points are great swathes of space where the gravitational acceleration from the Earth and the sun are exactly equal, letting objects stick there with very little effort.

Because they're far from warm stars and planets, they make useful havens for ultra-cold telescopes that measure fluctuations in the temperature of deep space.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which measures radiation from the big bang, lives at a Lagrange point called L2 more than 1 million kilometres away. The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the massive James Webb Space Telescope, will also be sent to the spot, which lies in line with the sun and Earth (see illustration).