Managing Disturbance Sources on LISA Pathfinder

The ultimate performance of the LISA Pathfinder mission in achieving disturbance‐free flight of the test masses is influenced by force fields and gradients originating from the spacecraft elements. Chief among these internal forces, torques and gradients are self‐gravity effects, magnetic field effects and thermal stability effects. Since each of these effects can directly influence the mission performance, it is necessary to ensure that they can be controlled and, where feasible, eliminated by design. This paper will describe the activities carried out by the LISA Pathfinder team to understand and model each of these effects, the design decisions made to minimise or eliminate certain aspects of each effect and, finally, the processes employed to control the effects that cannot be eliminated through design.