Free-flight experiments in LISA Pathfinder
Abstract
The LISA Pathfinder mission will demonstrate the technology of drag-free test masses for use as inertial references in future space-based gravitational wave detectors. To accomplish this, the Pathfinder spacecraft will perform drag-free flight about a test mass while measuring the acceleration of this primary test mass relative to a second reference test mass. Because the reference test mass is contained within the same spacecraft, it is necessary to apply forces on it to maintain its position and attitude relative to the spacecraft. These forces are a potential source of acceleration noise in the LISA Pathfinder system that are not present in the full LISA configuration. While LISA Pathfinder has been designed to meet it's primary mission requirements in the presence of this noise, recent estimates suggest that the on-orbit performance may be limited by this `suspension noise'. The drift-mode or free-flight experiments provide an opportunity to mitigate this noise source and further characterize the underlying disturbances that are of interest to the designers of LISA-like instruments. This article provides a high-level overview of these experiments and the methods under development to analyze the resulting data.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1412.8384,
title = {Free-flight experiments in LISA Pathfinder},
author = {M. Armano and H. Audley and G. Auger and J. Baird and P. Binetruy and M. Born and D. Bortoluzzi and N. Brandt and A. Bursi and M. Caleno and A. Cavalleri and A. Cesarini and M. Cruise and C. Cutler and K. Danzmann and I. Diepholz and R. Dolesi and N. Dunbar and L. Ferraioli and V. Ferroni and E. Fitzsimons and M. Freschi and J. Gallegos and C. Garcia. Marirrodriga and R. Gerndt and LI. Gesa and F. Gibert and D. Giardini and R. Giusteri and C. Grimani and I. Harrison and G. Heinzel and M. Hewitson and D. Hollington and M. Hueller and J. Huesler and H. Inchauspe and O. Jennrich and P. Jetzer and B. Johlander and N. Karnesis and B. Kaune and N. Korsakova and C. Killow and I. Lloro and R. Maarschalkerweerd and S. Madden and P. Maghami and D. Mance and V. Martin and F. Martin-Porqueras and I. Mateos and P. McNamara and J. Mendes and L. Mendes and A. Moroni and M. Nofrarias and S. Paczkowski and M. Perreur-Lloyd and A. Petiteau and P. Pivato and E. Plagnol and P. Prat and U. Ragnit and J. Ramos-Castro and J. Reiche and J. A. Romera. Perez and D. Robertson and H. Rozemeijer and G. Russano and P. Sarra and A. Schleicher and J. Slutsky and C. F. Sopuerta and T. Sumner and D. Texier and J. Thorpe and C. Trenkel and H. B. Tu and D. Vetrugno and S. Vitale and G. Wanner and H. Ward and S. Waschke and P. Wass and D. Wealthy and S. Wen and W. Weber and A. Wittchen and C. Zanoni and T. Ziegler and P. Zweifel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.8384},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
13 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to Journal Of Physics, Conference Series. Presented at 10th International LISA Symposium, May 2014, Gainesville, FL, USA