P. Prat

TL;DR: The first results of the LISA Pathfinder in-flight experiment demonstrate that two free-falling reference test masses, such as those needed for a space-based gravitational wave observatory like LISA, can be put in free fall with a relative acceleration noise with a square root of the power spectral density.

TL;DR: The current status of the LISA Pathfinder mission is described, a precursor mission aimed at demonstrating key technologies for future space-based gravitational wave detectors, like LISA, and performance measurements and analysis of these flight components lead to an expected performance of theLISA Pathfinder which is a significant improvement over the mission requirements.

TL;DR: Electrostatic measurements made on board the European Space Agency mission LISA Pathfinder are the first made in a relevant environment for a space-based gravitational wave detector and resolve the stochastic nature of the TM charge buildup due to interplanetary cosmic rays and theTM charge-to-force coupling through stray electric fields in the sensor.

TL;DR: LISA Pathfinder as discussed by the authors is a dedicated technology demonstrator for the joint ESA/NASA Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, which essentially mimics one arm of the LISA constellation by shrinking the 5 million kilometre armlength down to a few tens of centimetres, giving up the sensitivity to gravitational waves, but keeping the measurement technology.

TL;DR: In this article, a quantitative assessment of the performance of the upcoming LISA Pathfinder geodesic explorer mission is presented, based on the results of extensive ground testing and simulation campaigns using flight hardware, flight control and operations algorithms.