The Gaia mission was designed to take 5 years, with the possibility of 12 to 18 months extension. Over that period there were planned to be a few intermediate data releases with increasing detail in the data released (see Data Processing Cycles). The final data release was planned for 3 years after the end of the mission, initially anticipated to be around 2022 or 2023.
Gaia phases
Mission operations were divided into six phases, listed in the table below (based on Mercier E., Hoar J., 2013, Gaia Science Ground Segment Operations Plan, GAIA-C1-PL-ESAC-JSH-033-06).
Time | ESA Phase | ESA Name | DPAC Phase | DPAC Activities |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010-13 | D1 | verification | verification | operations validation activities |
2013-14 | D2 | commissioning | initialization | DPAC participation in spacecraft commissioning and qualification of the schedule-critical items (SCIs) with real data. The DPAC initialization phase will be done during the Data Processing Cycle 00 (baseline) |
2014-16 | E1a | early mission | nominal operational phase | routine processing of daily and cyclic software systems |
2016-19 | E1b | late mission | nominal operational phase | routine processing of daily and cyclic software systems |
2019-20 | E2 | extended mission | extended operational phase | extension of the processing of daily and cyclic software systems |
2020-23 | F | post mission | post mission | reprocessing of mission data |
Gaia milestones
The mission milestones are (Mercier E., Hoar J., 2013, Gaia Science Ground Segment Operations Plan, GAIA-C1-PL-ESAC-JSH-033-06):
- Launch, planned for December 2013,
- Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP): Launch + 12 days,
- L2 insertion: Launch + 1 month,
- In-Orbit Commissioning Review (IOCR): Launch + 4 months (the IOCR took place on 18 July 2014),
- Start of routine operations: Launch + 4 months (routine operations started on 25 July 2014),
- DPAC/ Science Operations Centre (SOC) mid-term Operations Review: Launch + 35 months (TBC),
- Review for End of routine operations: IOCR + 60 months,
- Option 1: mission extension is approved
- End of one year of mission extended operation: IOCR + 72 months,
- Start of 3 years post-operational period: IOCR + 72 months,
- End of mission: IOCR + 108 months.
- Option 2: mission extension is not approved
- Start of 3 years post-operational period: IOCR + 60 months,
- End of mission: IOCR + 96 months.
Page last updated: 31 October 2022