J. Baird

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}}}

Characteristics and Energy Dependence of Recurrent Galactic Cosmic-Ray Flux Depressions and of a Forbush Decrease with LISA Pathfinder

within the

Measuring the Galactic Cosmic Ray flux with the LISA Pathfinder radiation monitor

1-30\,\mathrm{mHz}

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

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

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

\mathrm{nm/s^2}

Calibrating the system dynamics of LISA Pathfinder

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.

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

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.

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

Galactic cosmic-ray (GCR) energy spectra observed in the inner heliosphere are modulated by the solar activity, the solar polarity and structures of solar and interplanetary origin. A high counting rate particle detector (PD) aboard LISA Pathfinder (LPF), meant for subsystems diagnostics, was devoted to the measurement of galactic cosmic-ray and solar energetic particle integral fluxes above 70 MeV n

The LISA Pathfinder Mission

^{-1}