Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Accurate characterization of the errors in the global astrometric solution for Gaia isessential for making optimal use of the catalogue data. We investigate the structure ofthe covariance between the estimated astrometric parameters by studying the properties ofthe astrometric least squares solution. We find that astrometric errors can be separatedin a star and an attitude part, due to the estimation of the star and attitude parametersrespectively. Hence the covariances can be separated in a star, an attitude and a crossterm. This is demonstrated using our scalable simulation tool AGISLab, where thecovariances are estimated statistically using Monte Carlo techniques.