On board is the world's most powerful satellite
camera.
Gaia is a hi-tech observatory worth more than
£600 million, and it headed into space from
a launch complex in French Guiana at 9.12
this morning.
Gaia's mission is to teach us more about The
Milky Way - what it's made up of and how it
formed. It will essentially create a 3D map
of our galaxy, by documenting the positions
of at least a billion stars, far more accurately
than ever before.
The sky has cleared for the lift off just
this afternoon, giving us a fine view of things
as you can see.
20 years in the making, the satellite is incredibly
advanced, with two telescopes and a billion-pixel
digital camera. Scientists hope it will also
spot thousands of new asteroids and planets,
as it can log anything that comes into it's
field of vision.
Everything functioning beautifully. You can
see the boosters twinkling on the left hand
side of the vapour trail there as Soyuz continues
her journey eastward.
40 minutes after launch, Gaia was due to separate
from its Soyuz transport rocket, before flying
to a position in orbit around the Sun. From
there, it will spend years carrying out what
it was designed to do.
