Experimental results from the ST7 mission on LISA Pathfinder
Abstract
The Space Technology 7 Disturbance Reduction System (ST7-DRS) is a NASA technology demonstration payload that operated from January 2016 through July of 2017 on the European Space Agency's LISA Pathfinder spacecraft. The joint goal of the NASA and ESA missions was to validate key technologies for a future space-based gravitational wave observatory targeting the source-rich milliHertz band. The two primary components of ST7-DRS are a micropropulsion system based on colloidal micro-Newton thrusters (CMNTs) and a control system that simultaneously controls the attitude and position of the spacecraft and the two free-flying test masses (TMs). This paper presents our main experimental results and summarizes the overall the performance of the CMNTs and control laws. We find that the CMNT performance to be consistent with pre-flight predictions, with a measured system thrust noise on the order of in the band. The control system maintained the TM-spacecraft separation with an RMS error of less than 2nm and a noise spectral density of less than in the same band. Thruster calibration measurements yield thrust values consistent with the performance model and ground-based thrust-stand measurements, to within a few percent. We also report a differential acceleration noise between the two test masses with a spectral density of roughly in the band, slightly less than twice as large as the best performance reported with the baseline LISA Pathfinder configuration and below the current requirements for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1809.08969,
title = {Experimental results from the ST7 mission on LISA Pathfinder},
author = {G Anderson and J Anderson and M Anderson and G Aveni and D Bame and P Barela and K Blackman and A Carmain and L Chen and M Cherng and S Clark and M Connally and W Connolly and D Conroy and M Cooper and C Cutler and J D'Agostino and N Demmons and E Dorantes and C Dunn and M Duran and E Ehrbar and J Evans and J Fernandez and G Franklin and M Girard and J Gorelik and V Hruby and O Hsu and D Jackson and S Javidnia and D Kern and M Knopp and R Kolasinski and C Kuo and T Le and I Li and O Liepack and A Littlefield and P Maghami and S Malik and L Markley and R Martin and C Marrese-Reading and J Mehta and J Mennela and D Miller and D Nguyen and J O'Donnell and R Parikh and G Plett and T Ramsey and T Randolph and S Rhodes and A Romero-Wolf and T Roy and A Ruiz and H Shaw and J Slutsky and D Spence and J Stocky and J Tallon and I Thorpe and W Tolman and H Umfress and R Valencia and C Valerio and W Warner and J Wellman and P Willis and J Ziemer and J Zwahlen and M Armano and H Audley and J Baird and P Binetruy and a M Born and D Bortoluzzi and E Castelli and A Cavalleri and A Cesarini and A M Cruise and K Danzmann and M de Deus Silva and I Diepholz and G Dixon and R Dolesi and L Ferraioli and V Ferroni and E D Fitzsimons and M Freschi and L Gesa and F Gibert and D Giardini and R Giusteri and C Grimani and J Grzymisch and I Harrison and G Heinzel and M Hewitson and D Hollington and D Hoyland and M Hueller and H Inchauspe and O Jennrich and P Jetzer and N Karnesis and B Kaune and N Korsakova and C J Killow and J A Lobo and I Lloro and L Liu and J P Lopez-Zaragoza and R Maarschalkerweerd and D Mance and N Meshksar and V Martin and L Martin-Polo and J Martino and F Martin-Porqueras and I Mateos and P W McNamara and J Mendes and L Mendes and M Nofrarias and S Paczkowski and M Perreur-Lloyd and A Petiteau and P Pivato and E Plagnol and J Ramos-Castro and J Reiche and D I Robertson and F Rivas and G Russano and C F Sopuerta and T Sumner and D Texier and D Vetrugno and S Vitale and G Wanner and H Ward and P J Wass and W J Weber and L Wissel and A Wittchen and P Zweifel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.08969},
year = {2018}
}