Monday, December 14, 2015

LISA Pathfinder en route to L1

LISA Pathfinder, the technology demonstration mission for the space-based gravitational-wave interferometer eLISA, was successfully launched on December 3. The launch was followed by six orbit-raising manoeuvres, the last of which was completed this past weekend, marking the formal end of the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP), and the start of approximately three months of commissioning. Pathfinder is now “en route to nothing”, traveling to a virtual point in space called the Sun-Earth Libration Point 1 (SEL1), 1.5 million km from Earth. For more info, see the LISA Pathfinder website and the ESA blog. Godspeed!