| 1. |
- Prusti, T., et al.
(författare)
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The Gaia mission
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 595
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 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.
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| 2. |
- Makin, OS, et al.
(författare)
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Molecular basis for amyloid fibril formation and stability
- 2005
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424. ; 102:2, s. 315-320
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The molecular structure of the amyloid fibril has remained elusive because of the difficulty of growing well diffracting crystals. By using a sequence-designed polypeptide, we have produced crystals of an amyloid fiber. These crystals diffract to high resolution (1 Å) by electron and x-ray diffraction, enabling us to determine a detailed structure for amyloid. The structure reveals that the polypeptides form fibrous crystals composed of antiparallel β-sheets in a cross-β arrangement, characteristic of all amyloid fibers, and allows us to determine the side-chain packing within an amyloid fiber. The antiparallel β-sheets are zipped together by means of π-bonding between adjacent phenylalanine rings and salt-bridges between charge pairs (glutamic acid–lysine), thus controlling and stabilizing the structure. These interactions are likely to be important in the formation and stability of other amyloid fibrils.
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| 3. |
- Mora, A., et al.
(författare)
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Gaia : Focus, straylight and basic angle
- 2016
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Ingår i: Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave. - : SPIE. - 9781510601871 ; 9904
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Gaia all-sky astrometric survey is challenged by several issues affecting the spacecraft stability. Amongst them, we find the focus evolution, straylight and basic angle variations Contrary to pre-launch expectations, the image quality is continuously evolving, during commissioning and the nominal mission. Payload decontaminations and wavefront sensor assisted refocuses have been carried out to recover optimum performance. An ESA-Airbus DS working group analysed the straylight and basic angle issues and worked on a detailed root cause analysis. In parallel, the Gaia scientists have also analysed the data, most notably comparing the BAM signal to global astrometric solutions, with remarkable agreement. In this contribution, a status review of these issues will be provided, with emphasis on the mitigation schemes and the lessons learned for future space missions where extreme stability is a key requirement.
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| 4. |
- Mora, A., et al.
(författare)
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Gaia on-board metrology: basic angle and best focus
- 2014
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Ingår i: Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave. - : SPIE. - 1996-756X .- 0277-786X. ; 9143, s. 91430-91430
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Gala payload ensures maximum passive stability using a single material, SiC, for most of its elements. Dedicated metrology instruments are, however, required to carry out two functions: monitoring the basic angle and refocusing the telescope. Two interferometers fed by the same laser are used to measure the basic angle changes at the level of pas (prad, micropixel), which is the highest level ever achieved in space. Two ShackHartmann wavefront sensors, combined with an ad-hoc analysis of the scientific data are used to define and reach the overall best-focus. In this contribution, the systems, data analysis, procedures and performance achieved during commissioning are presented
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