Gaia People

Markus Landgraf

European Space Operations Centre

Dr. rer. nat. Markus Landgraf is the mission analyst for Gaia. In mission analysis we provide the mission design, that is the trajectory from launch to operational orbit, time-lines and associated products like ground-station visibility schedule, delta-v budget, launch window, etc. We are in the mission since a very early stage normally all the way to the end. Our role gets a little less visible after launch as the operational responsibility for the orbit is taken over by flight dynamics.

Personally I am fascinated by the science of the Gaia mission. As a natural scientist I share the ambition to find new things in nature by performing a simple measurement (like the measurement of the position of stars in the sky) very precisely (which then makes it much less "simple"). So I am highly dedicated to finding the best possible orbit for Gaia, the current baseline being a 15 degree Lissajous orbit around the night-side Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, which is reached from the launch by Soyuz from Kourou by a fast transfer comprising two deterministic manoeuvres. Go Gaia!

[Published: 23/07/2010]