LISA PATHFINDER

10-day predictions
LISA PATHFINDER is classified as:

Experimental
Space & Earth Science

NORAD ID: 41043

Int'l Code: 2015-070A

Launch date: December 3, 2015
Source: European Space Agency (ESA)
Launch site: FRENCH GUIANA (FRGUI)

LISA PATHFINDER is a satellite designed to test the technologies, some of which had to be invented and refined for the mission, required for a future project to deploy two or three satellites to measure gravitational waves, a detection that would give astronomers a new way to study the universe. It took 10 years to build this project, and cost more than $630 million, a price divided between the European Space Agency, European governments and NASA. LISA Pathfinder, which weighed about 4,200 pounds (1.9 metric tons) at liftoff, tows along a propulsion module to give it a boost toward the L1 Lagrange point, a gravitationally stable position nearly a million miles - 1.5 million kilometers - from Earth in the direction of the sun.