The Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) is a group of over 400 European scientists and software engineers formed with the objective to design, develop and execute the data processing system for

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1 ...

's ambitious

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthe ...

space astrometry mission. It was formally formed in June 2006 by European scientists, with the initial goal of answering an Announcement of Opportunity to be issued by ESA before the end of that year. At a meeting in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

on 24–25 May 2007, ESA's Science Programme Committee (SPC) approved the DPAC proposal submitted in response to the Announcement of Opportunity for the Gaia data processing. The proposal describes a complete data processing system capable of handling the full size and complexity of the Gaia data within the mission schedule. Following the SPC approval, the DPAC is officially responsible for all Gaia data processing activities. On 1 January 2010, DPAC comprises 430 members coming from 24 European countries, with the largest contributions coming from France, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany,

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

, Spain and Switzerland. The consortium is organized around a set of nine Coordination Units (CUs), eight being each in charge of a particular aspect of the processing, and the last one being in charge of the publication of the Catalogue.

References

External links

DPACGaia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dpac European Space Agency Technology consortia