12 July

2000: On 12 July 2000, ESA's Cluster mission was rolled out to its launch pad. Shortly after sunrise, the doors of the Launch Vehicle Integration Hall in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, opened, and roll-out of the launch vehicle to the pad commenced.

A large number of spectators, from the project team as well as from the Russian side, witnessed the vehicle's 30 minute transfer to the pad by train. Once it arrived at the pad, the Soyuz was erected on the pad from horizontal into vertical position, using the hydraulic erector. This was followed by the anchoring of the rocket to the launch pad, release of the erector and 'aiming' of the launch vehicle (a rotation around its vertical axis in order to achieve the exact angle needed for the launch.)

1682: On 12 July 1682, Jean Picard died.

Picard was a French Jesuit, astronomer, cartographer and hydraulics engineer. He devised a movable-wire micrometer to measure the diameters of celestial objects such as the Sun, Moon and planets. He greatly increased the accuracy of measurements of Earth, using Snell's method of triangulation. These data were used by Newton in his gravitational theory.