THE GAIA INSTRUMENT AND BASIC IMAGE SIMULATOR

摘要

Detailed and accurate simulations are needed to be able to test and optimize the design according to the scientific needs, develop the on-board algorithms, prepare the reduction studies and assess the final performances and challenges. To this aim, a pixel-level simulator of the Gaia observations has been developed. It is part of the Gaia Simulator, sharing a common structure with the telemetry simulator GASS. It combines a model of the astrophysical sources that Gaia will observe with a model of the instruments, in order to simulate Gaia observations of given regions of the sky with a high level of precision. I will present here this pixel-level simulator with its current applications.