Fundamentals of the LISA Stable Flight Formation

TL;DR

This paper presents a detailed model of the LISA spacecraft formation flight, essential for stability analysis and mission planning, providing valuable insights for the scientific community involved in the mission.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive formulation of the principles governing the stable heliocentric formation of the LISA spacecraft, which has been seldom detailed before.

Findings

Provides a detailed model of LISA's formation flight

Facilitates theoretical studies on optical links and simulators

Enhances understanding of spacecraft constellation stability

Abstract

The joint NASA-ESA mission LISA relies crucially on the stability of the three spacecraft constellation. Each of the spacecraft is in heliocentric orbits forming a stable triangle. The principles of such a formation flight have been formulated long ago and analysis performed, but seldom presented if ever, even to LISA scientists. We nevertheless need these details in order to carry out theoretical studies on the optical links, simulators etc. In this article, we present in brief, a model of the LISA constellation, which we believe will be useful for the LISA community.