Publication | Closed Access
Gaia: operational aspects and tests of Gaia Flight Model CCDs
16
Citations
0
References
2009
Year
EngineeringAerospace SimulationCornerstone Mission GaiaOperational AspectsSpace OpticAstronomical Coordinate SystemPrism Dispersion OpticsAstronomical Image AnalysisSystems EngineeringModeling And SimulationObservational CosmologyFlight ValidationPhotometryRadio TelescopeSynchrotron RadiationAstrophysicsAdaptive OpticAviation SystemsAerospace EngineeringFocal PlaneAir Vehicle System
ESA's cornerstone mission Gaia is planning to map 1% of the stellar population of our galaxy, around one thousand million objects, to micro-arcsecond accuracy. In addition to high precision astrometric information, prism dispersion optics will be used to provide multi-band photometry and a spectroscopic instrument provides information for deriving radial velocities. Gaia's focal plane will be the largest ever flown to space comprising an almost Giga-pixel mosaic of 106 specially designed CCDs, the e2v technologies CCD91-72, operated synchronously in TDI mode. This paper will address some operational aspects of these detectors in the Gaia focal plane array and report on recent test results with respect to calibration needs.