B.B.C. Article
British industry has completed construction of the modules that make up the Lisa Pathfinder satellite.
This remarkable probe will test the key technologies needed to detect gravitational waves in space.


The Lisa Pathfinder contract represented a watershed for UK industry in space

If that can be done, it would open up black holes and other astrophysical phenomena to a completely new era of scientific investigation.
Lisa Pathfinder's modules were assembled at the UK arm of Airbus Defence and Space.
They leave for Germany on Monday, to go to the IABG consultancy just outside Munich for some final integration and testing.
From there, they will be shipped to Kourou in French Guiana for a rocket launch in September.

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B.B.C. Article
Gravity space mission passes big test
The mission to demonstrate technologies needed to detect gravitational waves in space has been a stunning success.
The Lisa Pathfinder satellite was sent into orbit to test elements of the laser measurement system that would be used on a future observatory.
Performance objectives were exceeded on the very first day the equipment was switched on.
"During commissioning, the requirements were being met already," co-principal investigator Karsten Danzmann said.
"We hadn't tweaked anything; we'd just turned everything on to see if the laser was running and, bang, there it was. And the performance has just got better and better ever since," he told BBC News.



There is currently enormous excitement around gravitational waves - the ripples in space-time generated in cataclysmic cosmic events, such as the merger of black holes and the explosion of giant stars.
The existence of these phenomena was first confirmed last year at the Advanced Ligo facilities in the US.
They picked up a very subtle disturbance in their laser interferometers as waves from far-distant, coalescing black holes passed through the Earth.
The success has been lauded as one of the great scientific breakthroughs in decades.

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