Then the team aligned the two cubes with the laser beams that link them, and checked that the laser measurements agreed with those from the electrostatic sensors.Īfter verifying that everything was working as planned, the intensity of the electrostatic forces was gradually reduced until none was being applied along the sensitive axes of the masses. This enabled the team to run further tests on the instruments, including the system used to measure the electrical charge of each cube and the procedures used to monitor their position and orientation. Over the following days, minute electrostatic forces were applied to manoeuvre the cubes and make them track the spacecraft's motion through space as it is slightly disturbed by external forces such as the pressure from sunlight. The successful release of the two cubes, floating in space 1.5 million km away, left the team members thrilled and delighted.
These rods were retracted from the first test mass on 15 February, and from the second on the following day, leaving the cubes floating freely several millimetres from the walls of their housings. The cubes were then being held in position only by two rods, softly pushing on opposite faces. One of the most delicate operations entailed releasing the two test masses from the mechanisms that kept them in place during ground handling, launch and cruise.įirst, the eight locking 'fingers' pressing on the corners of the identical gold–platinum cubes were retracted on 3 February. After launch on 3 December and six burns to raise the orbit, it finally reached its work site – 1.5 million km from Earth towards the Sun – in January, and the team of engineers and scientists started to switch on and test its systems.
It has been an intense couple of months for LISA Pathfinder.
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