Gravitational waves: Tests begin for future space observatory

[StringJunky]

From the BBC site:

 

 

The formal test programme begins this week on the technologies required to detect gravitational waves in space.

Europe's Lisa Pathfinder (LPF) probe will engage in a series of experiments roughly 1.5 million km from Earth.

 

The project has heightened interest, of course, because of the first sampling of the "cosmic ripples" made by ground-based detectors last September

A successful demo for LPF would pave the way for a fully operational orbiting observatory in the 2030s.

 

This would likely be known simply as Lisa - the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

 

"It's a wonderful time right now," said Paul McNamara, the European Space Agency's project scientist on Lisa Pathfinder.

 

"I've spent my entire career in this endeavour, and for years we were told - even ridiculed in some cases - that gravitational waves don't exist, or that we'd never find them.

 

"Well, now we have found them, and we're about to take the next big, big step towards building a mission that could detect them in space," he told BBC News. >>>>Read more

 

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

From the BBC site:

 

To do the experiment , they say the detectors need to be 1,000,000 km. apart if possible in a three station system . By 2030

 

 

Mike

Edited February 29, 2016 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[fundamentalscience]

seems possible to realize

[Pugdaddy]

The article on Lisa is dated March 1, 2016. The paper on using atomic clocks to measure gravitational waves is dated January, 2015. If the paper is correct, why are they still looking to go the much more expensive and test intensive interferometer method instead of the less expensive and presumably quicker method.

 

PDF link to the paper

 

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1501.00996v2.pdf

[imatfaal]

The article on Lisa is dated March 1, 2016. The paper on using atomic clocks to measure gravitational waves is dated January, 2015. If the paper is correct, why are they still looking to go the much more expensive and test intensive interferometer method instead of the less expensive and presumably quicker method.

 

PDF link to the paper

 

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1501.00996v2.pdf

 

 

Not sure that getting a payload to around 1-2 AU from earth - and then doing it for 3 or 4 others is ever the economic option

[Pugdaddy]

If they are proposing to distribute the clocks on earth's orbit, couldn't they bring the needed material to the space station, assemble them there and launch from there as the earth passes the spot where the clocks need to be? Or is that being to simplistic?