LISA Pathfinder tracera la voie vers la mission eLISA en testant, dans l’espace, le concept (les principes ?) de la détection d’ondes gravitationnelles.

L'endroit le plus silencieux du système solaire

LISA Pathfinder (LPF) placera deux masses d’épreuve en "chute libre" quasi parfaite, contrôlera et mesurera leur mouvement relatif avec une précision inégalée. Ceci sera effectué grâce à des thechnologies innovantes telles que des senseurs inertiels, un système de métrologie laser, un système à compensation de trainée et des micro-propulseurs délivrant des micro-Newton. L’ensemble de ces masses d’épreuve et leur environnement constitueront probablement un des endroits les plus "calmes" du système solaire.

Toutes ces technologies sont non seulement essentielles pour la mission eLISA, elles seront également à la base de toutes les missions qui voudront tester la théorie de la relativitié générale d’Einstein.

LPF sera lancé en novembre 2015.

The LISA Consortium

The LISA Consortium is committed to supporting the LISA mission. It includes all the main investigators involved in the highly successful LISA Pathfinder mission, a number of scientists who worked on the ground-based LIGO, Virgo, and GEO projects, and a number who worked on the Laser Ranging Interferometer on the GRACE Follow-On mission, thus making full use of the expertise accumulated so far. The LISA Consortium proposed and submitted the white paper The Gravitational Universe which was accepted for the ESA L3 slot.

If you are a scientist and wish to contribute to the LISA mission, use this scientist registration form.

Latest news and consortium activities

Date Title Summary
May 20, 2013
LPF scheduled for launch in 2015 The LISA consortium strongly supports ESA's LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission, whose launch...
Apr 07, 2013
Ready for launch: Heart of LISA Pathfinder space mission tested successfully The optical bench of the LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission is currently being extensively...
May 24, 2012
Getting ready for next time: European gravitational wave community strengthens space collaboration The LISA mission was reported to have been unanimously ranked first by ESA´s scientific...
Nov 13, 2011
LISA Pathfinder takes major step in hunt for gravitational waves Sensors destined for ESA's LISA Pathfinder mission in 2014 have exceeded expectations in...

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