the amount of solar energy the satellite could produce through its solar panels, as well as disturb the spacecraft's thermal equilibrium. After launch, a 10-metre-diameter sunshade was deployed. The sunshade always faces the Sun, thus keeping all telescope components cool and powering Gaia using solar panels on its surface. Scientific instruments The Gaia payload consists of three main instruments: The astrometry instrument (Astro) precisely determines the positions of all stars brighter than magnitude 20 by measuring their angular position. By combining the measurements of any given star over the five-year mission, it will be possible to determine its parallax, and therefore its distance, and its proper motion—the velocity of the star projected on the plane of the sky. The photometric instrument (BP/RP) allows the acquisition of luminosity measurements of stars over the 320–1000 nm spectral band, of all stars brighter than magnitude 20. The blue and red photometers (BP/RP) are used to determine stellar properties such as temperature, mass, age and elemental composition. Multi-colour photometry is provided by two low-resolution fused-silica prisms dispersing all the light entering the field of view in the along-scan direction prior to detection. The Blue Photometer (BP) operates in the wavelength range 330–680 nm; the Red Photometer (RP) covers the wavelength range 640–1050 nm. The Radial-Velocity Spectrometer (RVS) is used to determine the velocity of celestial objects along the line of sight by acquiring high-resolution spectra in the spectral band 847–874 nm (field lines of calcium ion) for objects up to magnitude 17. Radial velocities are measured with a precision between 1 km/s (V=11.5) and 30 km/s (V=17.5). The measurements of radial velocities are important to correct for perspective acceleration which is induced by the motion along the line of sight." The RVS reveals the velocity of the star along the line of sight of Gaia by measuring the Doppler shift of absorption lines in a high-resolution spectrum. In order to maintain the fine pointing to focus on stars many light years away, the only moving parts are actuators to align the mirrors and the valves to fire the thrusters. It has no reaction wheels or gyroscopes. The spacecraft subsystems are mounted on a rigid silicon carbide frame, which provides a stable structure that will not expand or contract due to temperature. Attitude control is provided by small cold gas thrusters that can output 1.5 micrograms of nitrogen per second. The telemetric link with the