• → European Space Agency

      • Space for Europe
      • Space News
      • Space in Images
      • Space in Videos
    • About Us

      • Welcome to ESA
      • DG’s blog
      • For Member State Delegations
      • Business with ESA
      • Law at ESA
      • ESA Exhibitions
      • ESA Publications
      • Careers at ESA
      • ESAshop
    • Our Activities

      • Space News
      • Observing the Earth
      • Human and Robotic Exploration
      • Space Transportation
      • Navigation
      • Space Science
      • Space Engineering & Technology
      • Operations
      • Telecommunications & Integrated Applications
      • Preparing for the Future
    • Careers at ESA

    • For Media

      • Media
      • ESA TV
      • Videos for professionals
      • Photos
    • For Educators

    • For Kids

    • ESA

    • ESA Science

    • Gaia

    • About Gaia

      • The legend of Gaia
      • Science objectives
    • Measuring the Milky Way

      • Guide to our Galaxy
      • Cosmic distances
      • Parallax
      • Spectroscopy
      • Radial velocity
      • Proper motion
    • Spacecraft and Instruments

      • Spacecraft overview
      • Telescopes
      • Science instruments
      • Service module
    • Mission Operations

      • Journey to orbit
      • Spinning in space
      • Who operates Gaia?
    • Multimedia
    • Gaia images
    • Gaia animations and videos
    • Gaia poster
    • Follow us
    • ESA Sci on Twitter
    • Gaia on FB
    • ESA Space Science Images on Flickr

    ESA > Our Activities > Space Science > Gaia

    Who operates Gaia?

    During launch, Gaia is operated from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany), using the ground stations at Perth (Australia) and Kourou (French Guiana).

    Once in orbit and during normal operations, ESA’s most powerful ground stations – the 35 m-diameter Deep Space Antennas at Cebreros (Spain) and New Norcia (Australia) – will be used to relay information to and from the spacecraft via ESOC.

    Science operations will be conducted from the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC, Villafranca, Spain).

    Gaia will communicate with Earth for an average of about 8 hours each day. During this time, it will transmit its science data and ‘housekeeping’ telemetry signal. Although the spacecraft is 1.5 million kilometres away, it will be able to maintain its transmission at an extremely high data rate (~ up to 7.5 Mbit/s).

    The Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC), which consists of more than 400 individuals, will process the data. Over the course of the 5 year mission, Gaia’s data archive will exceed 1 Petabyte (1 million Gigabytes), equivalent to about 200 000 DVDs worth of data.

    More about Gaia operations.

    Last update: 28 September 2017

    Rate this

    Views

    Share

    • Currently 4.5 out of 5 Stars.
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5
    Rating: 4.6/5 (12 votes cast)

    Thank you for rating!

    You have already rated this page, you can only rate it once!

    Your rating has been changed, thanks for rating!

    3044
    Tweet
    • Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way
      Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way
      Gaia Data Release 2 Media Kit
    • Spacecraft Operations
      Spacecraft Operations
      Operations
    • More about...
      • Gaia overview
        • Gaia factsheet
        • Frequently asked questions
        • Gaia brochure
        • Hipparcos mission
        • Target groups
        • For Media
        • In depth
        • For Educators
        • For kids
        • Related articles
          • How many stars are there in the Universe?
            • The billion-pixel camera
            • Related links
            • Gaia spacecraft testing
            • Vodcast: Charting the Galaxy - from Hipparcos to Gaia
            • Little books of Gaia
            • Make a Gaia model
            • Explore stellar neighbourhood in 3D
            • Gaia launch campaign photos
    • App Store
    • Subscribe
    • mobile version
    • FAQ

    • Site Map

    • Contacts

    • Terms and conditions