Gaia is a cornerstone mission in the science programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The spacecraft construction was approved in 2006, following a study in which the original interferometric concept was changed to a direct-imaging approach. Both the spacecraft and the payload were built by European industry. The involvement of the scientific community focusses on data processing for which the international Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) was selected in 2007. Gaia was launched on 19 December 2013 and arrived at its operating point, the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, a few weeks later. The commissioning of the spacecraft and payload was completed on 19 July 2014. The nominal five-year mission started with four weeks of special, ecliptic-pole scanning and subsequently transferred into full-sky scanning mode. We recall the scientific goals of Gaia and give a description of the as-built spacecraft that is currently (mid-2016) being operated to achieve these goals. We pay special attention to the payload module, the performance of which is closely related to the scientific performance of the mission. We provide a summary of the commissioning activities and findings, followed by a description of the routine operational mode. We summarise scientific performance estimates on the basis of in-orbit operations. Several intermediate Gaia data releases are planned and the data can be retrieved from the Gaia Archive, which is available through the Gaia home page.

Context. At about 1000 days after the launch of Gaia we present the first Gaia data release, Gaia DR1, consisting of astrometry and photometry for over 1 billion sources brighter than magnitude 20.7. Aims. A summary of Gaia DR1 is presented along with illustrations of the scientific quality of the data, followed by a discussion of the limitations due to the preliminary nature of this release. Methods. The raw data collected by Gaia during the first 14 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) and turned into an astrometric and photometric catalogue. Results. Gaia DR1 consists of three components: a primary astrometric data set which contains the positions, parallaxes, and mean proper motions for about 2 million of the brightest stars in common with the Hipparcos and Tycho-2 catalogues -a realisation of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) -and a secondary astrometric data set containing the positions for an additional 1.1 billion sources. The second component is the photometric data set, consisting of mean G-band magnitudes for all sources. The G-band light curves and the characteristics of ∼3000 Cepheid and RR Lyrae stars, observed at high cadence around the south ecliptic pole, form the third component. For the primary astrometric data set the typical uncertainty is about 0.3 mas for the positions and parallaxes, and about 1 mas yr −1 for the proper motions. A systematic component of ∼0.3 mas should be added to the parallax uncertainties. For the subset of ∼94 000 Hipparcos stars in the primary data set, the proper motions are much more precise at about 0.06 mas yr −1 . For the secondary astrometric data set, the typical uncertainty of the positions is ∼10 mas. The median uncertainties on the mean G-band magnitudes range from the mmag level to ∼0.03 mag over the magnitude range 5 to 20.7. Conclusions. Gaia DR1 is an important milestone ahead of the next Gaia data release, which will feature five-parameter astrometry for all sources. Extensive validation shows that Gaia DR1 represents a major advance in the mapping of the heavens and the availability of basic stellar data that underpin observational astrophysics. Nevertheless, the very preliminary nature of this first Gaia data release does lead to a number of important limitations to the data quality which should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the data.

Earth Moon and Planets, 101, pp. 97-125, http://dx.doi.org./10.1007/s11038-007-9221-zInternational audienc

We describe a strategy for scheduling astrometric observations to minimize the number re quired to determine the mutual orbits of binary transneptunian systems. The method is illustrat ed by application to Hubble Space Telescope observations of (42355) TyphonEchidna, reveal ing that Typhon and Echidna orbit one another with a period of 18.971 ± 0.006 days and a semi major axis of 1628 ± 29 km, implying a system mass of (9.49 ± 0.52) × 10 17 kg. The eccentric ity of the orbit is 0.526 ± 0.015. Combined with a radiometric size determined from Spitzer Space Telescope data and the assumption that Typhon and Echidna both have the same albedo, we estimate that their radii are 76 14 −16 and 42 8 −9 km, respectively. These numbers give an average bulk density of only 0.44 0.44 −0.17 g cm 3 , consistent with very low bulk densities recently reported for two other small transneptunian binaries.

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The impact of drying on the ultrastructure of fresh wood was studied by deuterium exchange coupled with FT-IR analysis. This fundamental investigation demonstrated that water removal leads to irreversible alterations of the wood structure, namely, supramolecular rearrangements between wood polymers. The deuteration of fresh wood was shown to be fully reversible by a subsequent exposure of the deuterated sample to water (reprotonation). Therefore, the presence of any OD groups in deuterated and then dried wood samples after reprotonation is a clear indicator of reduced accessibility. The extent of changes was affected by drying temperature and relative humidity. Application of this methodology for the evaluation of chemical pulp sample (reference material) resulted in similar response, only more pronounced. Two hypothetical alternatives were proposed for accessibility reduction in dried wood: (i) irreversible aggregation of cellulose microfibrils and (ii) irreversible stiffening of the hemicellulose/lignin matrix that extensively swells when exposed to water.

Ranging allows the user to obtain sampled, non-Gaussian orbital-element probability-density functions and is therefore optimized for cases where the amount of astrometry is scarce or spans a relatively short time interval. Ranging-based methods have successfully been applied to a variety of different problems such as rigorous ephemeris prediction, orbital element distribution studies for transneptunian objects, the computation of invariant collision probabilities between near-Earth objects and the Earth, detection of linkages between astrometric asteroid observations within an apparition as well as between apparitions, and in the rigorous analysis of the impact of orbital arc length and/or astrometric uncertainty on the uncertainty of the resulting orbits. Tools for making ephemeris predictions and for classifying objects based on their orbits are also available in OpenOrb.As an example, we use OpenOrb in the search for candidate retrograde and/or high-inclination objects similar to 2008 KV 42 in the known population of transneptunian objects that have an observational time span shorter than 30 days.

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