LISA Pathfinder as a Micrometeoroid Instrument

11th International LISA Symposium

Thorpe, J.I.^1,2 ; Littenberg, T.B.^2 ; Baker, J.^1 ; Slutsky, J.^1

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt

MD

20771, United States^1

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville

AL

35812, United States^2

关键词: Drag free control systems;    Dust environment;    External disturbances;    Impact locations;    Linear and angular momentums;    LISA Pathfinder;    Transferred momentum;    Vector quantity;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/840/1/012007/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/840/1/012007

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

LISA Pathfinder is perhaps the most precise accelerometry instrument ever flown in space. The drag-free control system can sense and react to external disturbances of an extremely small magnitude. One class of such disturbances are the impacts of micrometeoroids or dust. A simple model of the LPF system suggests that individual impacts with transferred momentum exceeding a few tens of nanoNewton-meters are detectable. Furthermore, the ability of LPF to resolve both the linear and angular momentum transfer as vector quantities allows information such as the sky location and the impact location of the impactor to be reconstructed. This novel approach to micrometeoroid detection and characterization, as well as the location of LPF at L1, provide an opportunity to improve our understanding of the dust environment in the inner solar system. Here we present some preliminary findings from LPF, including four candidate impact events.