ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)
The European Space Agency (ESA) on Thursday (December 19) successfully launched its billion-star surveyor Gaia at 9:12:19 GMT from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Fueling of the launch vehicle, a Soyuz ST-B rocket, started about four hours before.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) CHIEF SCIENTIST OF GAIA MISSION, MARK MCCAUGHREAN, SAYING:
"So GAIA is a satellite. But it's a mission which will have the key to unlocking the Milky Way galaxy which we live in. It'll measure the positions of a billion stars but also their speeds, their motions. And with that we can run a movie of the Milky Way. We can run it forwards into the future, how the Milky Way will develop by looking at all the stars and how they move. But we can run it backwards as well, and we can see how the Milky Way actually formed in the first place."
The 53 metre-high mobile gantry surrounding the vehicle was removed before the final countdown began.
Gaia
