University of Glasgow's Space Mission Cleared for Launch in 2015

Scientists at the University of Glasgow's Institute for Gravitational Research (IGR) have successfully reached another important milestone and look firmly on course for a launch in 2015.

Its heart, the optical bench, has now been further integrated into the core assembly of the satellite.

The optical bench of the LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission is the super-sensitive heart of a technology demonstrator mission which will pave the way for a future spaceborne detector to measure gravitational waves. These ripples in spacetime are caused by massively violent astronomical events such as the collision of black holes and the explosion of dying stars.

The IGR team in the School of Physics and Astronomy demonstrated that the high-precision sensor system is ready to survive tremendous forces of up to 35 times the gravitational acceleration on Earth during rocket launch, and still maintain its exquisite alignment.

Dr Christian Killow, Scottish Universities Physics Alliance Advanced Fellow at the University, said: "With the optical bench now in place, we have reached an important milestone. The sophisticated laser interferometer performs superbly and is ready for its job in space. We are really excited that the LISA Pathfinder mission is now well positioned for launch in 2015."

LISA Pathfinder is a European Space Agency (ESA) technology test mission that aims to prove essential key technologies for future space-based gravitational-wave observatories, which cannot be tested on Earth, but only in space.

For this purpose, one laser arm of a planned large gravitational wave mission is reduced from millions of kilometres to 40cm, to fit into a single spacecraft. The optical bench tested at the IGR in Glasgow is the heart of LPF.

LPF is an ESA led mission. It involves European space companies and research institutes from France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and UK and the US space agency NASA.

The concept and details of the optical sensing scheme for LISA Pathfinder have been developed at the University of Glasgow based on the initial work at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Hanover, Germany. Its director Karsten Danzmann is Co-Principal Investigator of the mission and shares the scientific leadership with Stefano Vitale, University of Trento, Italy.

In order to build the optical bench the IGR scientists, led by Dr. Harry Ward, developed a silicate bonding technique to allow robust, sub-micron optical component positioning - an enabling technology that is now finding additional uses in the ground and space based activities, and in both academic and industrial endeavours.

The research and development at the IGR has been funded by the UK Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC), by the UK Space Agency, by ESA, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance and by the University of Glasgow.