LISA Pathfinder technology developments applicable to future gravity missions

Gerhard Heinzel
Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik

The LISA mission, a joint ESA-NASA project to be launched around 2020, is designed to observe gravitational waves of astrophysical origin. The necessary techniques, which are under intensive development now, include the control of drag-free spacecraft, free-floating test masses and low-noise heterodyne laser interferometry between distant spacecraft, in a frequency range between 0.1 mHz and 1 Hz. Many of these techniques could also be applied to improve the inter-spacecraft ranging in a GRACE-type mission with slightly different, and often easier, requirements. This presentation will introduce some of the interferometric techniques under development for LISA and its technology demonstrator LISA Pathfinder, and the particular challenges for an GRACE-like application, namely the laser frequency stabilisation and how to deal with orientation jitter.