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ESA signs Gaia launch contract
Paris (UPI) Dec 16, 2009 The European Space Agency says it's signed a contract for its next-generation star-mapper spacecraft, Gaia, to be launched by an Arianespace rocket. The launch is to take place on an as yet unspecified date in 2011 from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. David Southwood, ESA's director of science and robotic exploration, signed the contract for the launch Tuesday with Jean-Yves LeGall, chairman and CEO of Arianespace, at ESA headquarters in Paris. ESA officials said Gaia will map 1,000 million stars at unprecedented levels of precision, with the objective to use its census of stars to clarify the history and origins of our galaxy. "Gaia will monitor each of its target stars about 70 times over a five-year period, precisely charting their positions, distances, movements and changes in brightness," the space agency said in a statement. "It is expected to discover hundreds of thousands of new celestial objects, such as extra-solar planets and failed stars called brown dwarfs. Within our own Solar System, Gaia should also identify tens of thousands of asteroids." Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Launch Pad at Space-Travel.com
NASA's WISE Eye On The Universe Begins All-Sky Survey MissionVandenberg AFB CA (SPX) Dec 15, 2009 NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, lifted off over the Pacific Ocean this morning on its way to map the entire sky in infrared light. A Delta II rocket carrying the spacecraft launched at 6:09 a.m. PST (9:09 a.m. EST) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket deposited WISE into a polar orbit 326 miles above Earth. "WISE thundered overhead, lighting up the pre-dawn skies," said William Irace, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. ... read more |
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