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| Announcement of Opportunity for photometry scientist in the Gaia Science Team |
| The Director of Science and Robotic Exploration has released an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for membership in the science team of the Gaia mission. The invitation to respond to this AO is presented here, followed by the AO schedule. The AO document and the Science Management Plan can be accessed from the right-hand menu.
The deadline for receipt of proposals is 30 April 2013. |
| Date: 20 Mar 2013 |
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| Announcement of Opportunity for the Gaia Data Processing Archive Access Co-Ordination Unit |
| The European Space Agency (ESA) solicits through the present Announcement of Opportunity (AO) proposals for the provision of the Archive Access Co-Ordination Unit (CU9) in the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC). The deadline for proposal submission is 10 January 2013. |
| Date: 19 Nov 2012 |
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| Gaia mirrors ready to shine |
| ESA's Gaia mission has passed another major milestone after the completion of 10 state-of-the-art mirrors that will be used to measure the precise positions of a billion stars. With the delivery of the last of these complex mirrors, Europe has further reinforced its position as the world leader in silicon carbide mirror technology. |
| Date: 15 Sep 2011 |
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| Billion pixel Gaia camera starts to take shape |
| Another milestone in the development of Gaia, ESA's ultra-sensitive space astrometry mission, was passed on 1 June when the 106 electronic detectors of its billion pixel camera were assembled like a large mosaic for the first time. |
| Date: 06 Jul 2011 |
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| Michael Perryman awarded prestigious Tycho Brahe Prize |
| Professor Michael Perryman, the scientific leader of ESA's Hipparcos mission, and a founding father of its successor mission, Gaia, has been awarded the 2011 Tycho Brahe Prize from the European Astronomical Society. The prize recognises the extraordinary work accomplished by Perryman in shepherding the field of astrometry to its successful leap into space-based observations and demonstrating the importance of measuring stellar positions for a plethora of astronomical applications. |
| Date: 06 Jun 2011 |
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| Call for Letters of Interest to participate in the preparatory activities for the Gaia archive access |
NOTE - The deadline for submissions has passed
Dear Colleagues,
ESA hereby invites groups in Member States, wishing to participate in the preparatory activities for the Gaia archive access working group, to submit a Letter of Interest to ESA outlining their area of expertise and potential contribution. |
| Date: 01 Mar 2011 |
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| Gaia's 'eyes' and 'brain' pass tests |
| Another milestone in the development of ESA's Gaia spacecraft has been passed with the successful conclusion of two parallel test programmes during October. These tests demonstrated that Gaia's focal plane assembly (FPA) - the 'eyes' of the spacecraft - is structurally and functionally fit for flight. |
| Date: 23 Nov 2010 |
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| Delivery of Gaia's primary mirrors |
| ESA's mission to measure the precise positions of a billion stars reached an important milestone on 3 September with the delivery of its first primary mirror. The second primary mirror is near completion and scheduled to arrive at the Toulouse test and integration centre of prime contractor EADS Astrium during October. |
| Date: 13 Sep 2010 |
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| Scientific community makes GREAT progress towards Gaia |
| With the launch of Gaia only two years away, the European science community is actively engaged in training the next generation of young astronomers who will exploit the flood of data from this 'Cornerstone' science mission. |
| Date: 29 Jun 2010 |
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| First Gaia mirrors completed |
| The Gaia project recently passed another major milestone with the completion of three of the 10 payload mirrors. Final acceptance for the M5 and two M4 mirrors was granted by Delivery Review Boards conducted at the premises of Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems (AMOS) in Liege, Belgium, towards the end of 2009. |
| Date: 11 Jan 2010 |
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| The Gaia torus is complete |
| At the end of June the Gaia mission passed a significant milestone when the 17 individual segments of the torus, a key structural element of the spacecraft, were brazed into one coherent structure at the BOOSTEC premises at Bazet near Tarbes, France. The successful results of this process were concluded after a Mandatory Inspection Point of the torus on Monday 20 July 2009. |
| Date: 28 Jul 2009 |
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| Thermal testing of Gaia's Deployable Sunshield Assembly begins |
| On 11 July the qualification model of the Gaia Deployable Sunshield Assembly (DSA) was installed inside the Large Space Simulator (LSS) at the ESTEC test facilities in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Over the coming days the DSA will undergo a thermal vacuum and thermal balance test in simulated space conditions. The LSS is the only facility in Europe large enough to perform this test. |
| Date: 22 Jul 2009 |
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| ESA Bulletin 137: ESA's 'billion-pixel' camera |
| The latest issue of the ESA Bulletin carries an article about ESA's 'billion-pixel camera' for Gaia. |
| Date: 02 Mar 2009 |
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| Gaia video processing unit test model delivered |
| The Gaia video processing unit (VPU) development activity has recently been finalized with the delivery of the engineering model (EM) from Astrium UK to Astrium France. The unit is responsible for the real-time processing and commanding of star data transmitted by the focal plane assembly. |
| Date: 13 Feb 2009 |
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| State-of-the-art grating for Gaia |
| An important milestone has been reached for the Gaia Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS): the full-size demonstrator model of the RVS grating - a key component responsible for the dispersion of the light into constituent wavelengths - has been built by industry and was delivered to ESA last month. |
| Date: 30 Jan 2009 |
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| Call for Expression of Interest in Participating in the GREAT programme |
| The ESA Gaia Science Team and the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium are working with others in the community to build the European science capacity to successfully exploit the Gaia cornerstone mission. One aspect of this work will be carried out via the GREAT (Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training) programme. A Call for Expression of Interest in Participating in the GREAT programme has been issued with a deadline for receipt of proposals of 17:00 GMT (19:00 CEST) on 26 September 2008. |
| Date: 02 Sep 2008 |
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| NASA's WMAP poses for ESA's Gaia |
| Sebastien Bouquillon (SYRTE/Obs. de Paris), Ricky Smart (INAF/OATo, Torino) and Alexandre Andrei (Observatorio Nacional, Rio de Janeiro) have used the 2.2m telescope of the European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile, to take several photographs of NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite in its orbit, which is about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth. Perhaps surprisingly, they did so as part of the preparations for ESA's Gaia mission, which scientifically is totally unrelated to WMAP. |
| Date: 08 May 2008 |
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| Preparing for Gaia with ELSA |
| A dedicated workshop designed to introduce the next generation of astrometry specialists to the science of Gaia successfully concluded this week in Leiden. |
| Date: 30 Nov 2007 |
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| SPC Approves DPAC Proposal for Gaia Data Processing |
| At its most recent meeting in Paris, ESA's Science Programme Committee (SPC) has approved the proposal by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) submitted in response to the AO for Gaia data processing, issued last November. |
| Date: 07 Jun 2007 |
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| Gaia Science Team Announcement of Opportunity |
The Science Directorate of the European Space Agency has released an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for membership in the science team of the Gaia mission. The invitation from the Director of Science to respond to this AO is presented here. The AO document and the Science Management Plan can be accessed from the right-hand menu.
The deadline for receipt of proposals has now passed. |
| Date: 01 Mar 2007 |
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