Via Lactea, known by it's inhabitants as the Milky Way and the Milky Way Galaxy, was a spiral galaxy, possibly a Barred Spiral Galaxy, and one of the billions of galaxies in the Universe and a neighboring galaxy of the Star Wars Galaxy. Since 21 BBY, Via Lactea had been continually studied and explored by probes and sattelite, although the 22 BBY mission remained the only manned mission to the Galaxy by 35 ABY.