Gaia star surveyor joins Soyuz rocket

A team of Russian and European technicians working in the Amazon jungle transferred a Soyuz rocket and a sharp-eyed astronomical observatory to the launch pad this weekend, connecting the launcher and payload together for liftoff Thursday on a $1.2 billion mission to create an atlas of the galaxy.

The rollout operations began Saturday at sunrise at the Guiana Space Center in South America. Russian workers moved the three-stage rocket on a specialized transporter-erector system riding on rail tracks.

By midday, the Soyuz was lifted vertical over the launch pad's cavernous flame trench carved out of granite bedrock.

The 4,484-pound Gaia spacecraft, already enclosed with its Fregat-MT upper stage inside the Soyuz rocket's payload fairing, was transported Saturday afternoon from a clean room at the south end of the space center to the Soyuz launch zone near the northwest perimeter of the French-owned base.

Once it arrived at the base of the Soyuz launch pad's 174-foot-tall mobile gantry, Gaia and the rocket's 13.5-foot-diameter nose shroud were lifted into the tower and positioned above the Soyuz third stage.

The Fregat upper stage, Gaia and the fairing were firmly attached to the Soyuz launcher Saturday night with the manual tightening of 102 bolts.

A countdown rehearsal is set for Tuesday ahead of the start of the real countdown late Wednesday.

Launch is scheduled for 0912:19 GMT (4:12:19 a.m. EST; 6:12:19 a.m. local time).

See our Mission Status Center for the latest news on the launch.

Credit: ESA-CNES-Arianespace/Optique video du CSG-L. Barthet Barateig