heavy launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Centre. The launch placed the craft into a very elliptical orbit (perigee: , apogee: more than ), bringing it near the Lagrangian point of the Earth-Sun system, from the Earth. The manoeuvre to inject Planck into its final orbit around was successfully completed on 3 July 2009, when it entered a Lissajous orbit with a radius around the Lagrangian point. The temperature of the High Frequency Instrument reached just a tenth of a degree above absolute zero (0.1 K) on 3 July 2009, placing both the Low Frequency and High Frequency Instruments within their cryogenic operational parameters, making Planck fully operational. Decommissioning In January 2012 the HFI exhausted its supply of liquid helium, causing the detector temperature to rise and rendering the HFI unusable. The LFI continued to be used until science operations ended on 3 October 2013. The spacecraft performed a manoeuvre on 9 October to move it away from Earth and its , placing it into a heliocentric orbit, while payload deactivation occurred on 19 October. Planck was commanded on 21 October to exhaust its remaining fuel supply; passivation activities were conducted later, including battery disconnection and the disabling of protection mechanisms. The final deactivation command, which switched off the spacecraft's transmitter, was sent to Planck on 23 October 2013 at 12:10:27 UTC. Results Planck started its First All-Sky Survey on 13 August 2009. In September 2009, the European Space Agency announced the preliminary results from the Planck First Light Survey, which was performed to demonstrate the stability of the instruments and the ability to calibrate them over long periods. The results indicated that the data quality is excellent. On 15 January 2010 the mission was extended by 12 months, with observation continuing until at least the end of 2011. After the successful conclusion of the First Survey, the spacecraft started its Second All Sky Survey on 14 February 2010, with more than 95% of the sky observed already and 100% sky coverage being expected by mid-June 2010. Some planned pointing list data from 2009 have been released publicly, along with a video visualization of the surveyed sky. On 17 March 2010, the first Planck photos were published, showing dust concentration within 500 light years from the Sun. On 5 July 2010, the Planck mission delivered its first all-sky image. The first public scientific result of Planck is the Early-Release Compact-Source