OPENSPACE 24: The Future of Space Exploration | Page 43

Mission Facts
Launch date
December 3, 2015, from
Europe’s spaceport in Kourou,
French Guiana.
Launch vehicle
Arianespace flight VV06 on a
Vega launcher.
LISA projected launch date
2034.
Mission duration
Up to 10 years. It will take 14
months for LISA to go into
orbit as it goes 50 million
km away from the Earth. The
commission phase will last 9
months, and then ESA expects
operations to last 4 years, with
enough fuel for extension until
6 years.
these test masses were held inside cages that were engineered to protect
them from any external forces. As long as this environment is maintained,
the falling blocks should follow a straight line that is defined only by gravity,
and it is under such conditions that the spacecraft would be able to detect
a gravitational wave by changing the blocks’ separation. LISA Pathfinder
demonstrated that this is feasible with unprecedented accuracy.
“We have exceeded not only the requirements set for LISA Pathfinder, but
also the accuracy required at all frequencies. We expected to see picometer
scale motions [one millionth of a billionth of a meter], and we could pick up
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motion at the femtometer scale, which is 1,000 times smaller than a picometer.
The fact that we were able to measure that from space was outstanding. It’s
more than 100 times better than ever measured on the ground,” said Paul
McNamara, LISA Pathfinder project scientist.
Beyond the initial scope of the mission, the technologies demonstrated by
“We have exceeded not
only the requirements
set for LISA Pathfinder,
but also the accuracy
required at all
frequencies.”
Paul McNamara
LISA Pathfinder Project Scientist.
LISA Pathfinder could be used for missions monitoring the Earth’s gravitational
field and missions studying quantum mechanics. According to McNamara,
ESA is also working on a study that will look at future missions around the
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