A. Cesarini

Constraints on LISA Pathfinder's Self-Gravity: Design Requirements, Estimates and Testing Procedures

LISA Pathfinder satellite has been launched on 3th December 2015 toward the Sun-Earth first Lagrangian point (L1) where the LISA Technology Package (LTP), which is the main science payload, will be tested. With its cutting-edge technology, the LTP will provide the ability to achieve unprecedented geodesic motion residual acceleration measurements down to the order of

Disentangling the magnetic force noise contribution in LISA Pathfinder

3 \times 10^{-14}\,\mathrm{m/s^2/{Hz^{1/2}}}

In-flight thermal experiments for LISA Pathfinder: Simulating temperature noise at the Inertial Sensors

within the

Bayesian statistics for the calibration of the LISA pathfinder experiment

1-30\,\mathrm{mHz}

Precision Charge Control for Isolated Free-Falling Test Masses: LISA Pathfinder Results

frequency band. The presence of the spacecraft itself is responsible of the local gravitational field which will interact with the two proof test-masses. Potentially, such a force interaction might prevent to achieve the targeted free-fall level originating a significant source of noise. We balanced this gravitational force with sub

Calibrating the system dynamics of LISA Pathfinder

\mathrm{nm/s^2}

A noise simulator for eLISA: Migrating LISA Pathfinder knowledge to the eLISA mission

accuracy, guided by a protocol based on measurements of the position and the mass of all parts that constitute the satellite, via finite element calculation tool estimates. In the following, we will introduce requirements, design and foreseen on-orbit testing procedures.

Beyond the required LISA free-fall performance: new LISA Pathfinder results down to 20 μHz

Magnetically-induced forces on the inertial masses on-board LISA Pathfinder are expected to be one of the dominant contributions to the mission noise budget, accounting for up to 40%. The origin of this disturbance is the coupling of the residual magnetization and susceptibility of the test masses with the environmental magnetic field. In order to fully understand this important part of the noise model, a set of coils and magnetometers are integrated as a part of the diagnostics subsystem. During operations a sequence of magnetic excitations will be applied to precisely determine the coupling of the magnetic environment to the test mass displacement using the on-board magnetometers. Since no direct measurement of the magnetic field in the test mass position will be available, an extrapolation of the magnetic measurements to the test mass position will be carried out as a part of the data analysis activities. In this paper we show the first results on the magnetic experiments during an end- to-end LISA Pathfinder simulation, and we describe the methods under development to map the magnetic field on-board.

The LISA Pathfinder Mission

Thermal Diagnostics experiments to be carried out on board LISA Pathfinder (LPF) will yield a detailed characterisation of how temperature fluctuations affect the LTP (LISA Technology Package) instrument performance, a crucial information for future space based gravitational wave detectors as the proposed eLISA. Amongst them, the study of temperature gradient fluctuations around the test masses of the Inertial Sensors will provide as well information regarding the contribution of the Brownian noise, which is expected to limit the LTP sensitivity at frequencies close to 1 mHz during some LTP experiments. In this paper we report on how these kind of Thermal Diagnostics experiments were simulated in the last LPF Simulation Campaign (November, 2013) involving all the LPF Data Analysis team and using an end-to-end simulator of the whole spacecraft. Such simulation campaign was conducted under the framework of the preparation for LPF operations.

Charge-induced force-noise on free-falling test masses: results from LISA Pathfinder

The main goal of LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission is to estimate the acceleration noise models of the overall LISA Technology Package (LTP) experiment on-board. This will be of crucial importance for the future space-based Gravitational-Wave (GW) detectors, like eLISA. Here, we present the Bayesian analysis framework to process the planned system identification experiments designed for that purpose. In particular, we focus on the analysis strategies to predict the accuracy of the parameters that describe the system in all degrees of freedom. The data sets were generated during the latest operational simulations organised by the data analysis team and this work is part of the LTPDA Matlab toolbox.