The end-to-end testbed of the Optical Metrology System on-board LISA Pathfinder

TL;DR

This paper describes the development of an end-to-end ground testbed for the Optical Metrology System of LISA Pathfinder, enabling validation and testing of the system's components and performance before flight.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive experimental testbed for the entire OMS, including interferometer, phasemeter, and control system components, for ground-based validation.

Findings

Testbed includes all key components of the LTP that can be tested on Earth.

It uses breadboard and engineering model components for system validation.

The testbed serves as a reference for unit testing and in-mission validation.

Abstract

LISA Pathfinder is a technology demonstration mission for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). The main experiment on-board LISA Pathfinder is the so-called LISA Technology Package (LTP) which has the aim to measure the differential acceleration between two free-falling test masses with an accuracy of 3x10^(-14) ms^(-2)/sqrt[Hz] between 1 mHz and 30 mHz. This measurement is performed interferometrically by the Optical Metrology System (OMS) on-board LISA Pathfinder. In this paper we present the development of an experimental end-to-end testbed of the entire OMS. It includes the interferometer and its sub-units, the interferometer back-end which is a phasemeter and the processing of the phasemeter output data. Furthermore, 3-axes piezo actuated mirrors are used instead of the free-falling test masses for the characterisation of the dynamic behaviour of the system and some parts of the Drag-free and Attitude Control System (DFACS) which controls the test masses and the satellite. The end-to-end testbed includes all parts of the LTP that can reasonably be tested on earth without free-falling test masses. At its present status it consists mainly of breadboard components. Some of those have already been replaced by Engineering Models of the LTP experiment. In the next steps, further Engineering Models and Flight Models will also be inserted in this testbed and tested against well characterised breadboard components. The presented testbed is an important reference for the unit tests and can also be used for validation of the on-board experiment during the mission.