The commissioning of Gaia

With the successful launch of the next generation space astrometry mission Gaia* in December 2013, this paper is going to provide an overview and status of this mission after its first half year of operations in space. We will provide a summary of the performed commissioning activities, the obtained findings, and how these first months of working on real data is impacting the DPAC operational concepts. The results will also provide a first glimpse of what Gaia will deliver in its future catalog releases.

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