In 2013, ESA launched Gaia, a mission to measure the positions of the stars.

Gaia was built by Astrium, among others, and follows on from Hipparcos. It lifted off on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz and works near the L2 Earth-Sun point. It has a mass of 2,029 kilograms.