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08 October 2015
LISA Pathfinder, ESA's demonstrator for space-based observations of gravitational waves, has arrived at Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, ahead of a launch currently foreseen for 2 December.

Once operating in space, LISA Pathfinder will pave the way for future missions by testing critical concepts and technologies related to the detection of gravitational waves, ripples in spacetime, the very fabric of the Universe. To do so, it will put two small gold-platinum cubes in a near-perfect gravitational free-fall through space, and control and measure their motions with unprecedented accuracy.
LISA Pathfinder consists of a science module, containing the core elements of the science experiment, that will be transferred by a separable propulsion module to its operational Lissajous orbit around the Lagrange point L1, 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth in the direction of the Sun.

 

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