LIGO

think about how much we will learn every
day from our orbiting laboratory, as we turn
on the instruments and move towards dragfree
control of the LPF spacecraft and an interferometric
measurement of the relative
acceleration of two free-falling test masses.”
Eric Plagnol, APC Paris:
“I am certainly excited and maybe a little
tense as the fate of LISA Pathfinder is out of
our hands in the coming weeks… but confident
that ESA’s Mission Operation Center
will make this first step a success.”
Stefano Vitale, University of Trento:
“Quite an exciting moment! I think everybody
in the field should keep their fingers
crossed!!”
Miquel Nofrarias, IEEC, Barcelona:
“I feel privileged to live this moment. Somehow,
it looks to me similar to the 1919 expedition
to the island of Principe... it was also a
risky and complicated adventure with only
one chance to measure. We are just taking a
ship that goes a little further!“
Dave Robertson, University of Glasgow:
“After more than a decade involved in designing,
building testing and documenting
the LISA Pathfinder optical bench it will be
both exciting and a huge relief to finally get
good data from it in orbit. Until then there is
the suppressed terror that something, somewhere,
will go wrong. Watching the live feed
from the launch site at 4.15am is particularly
worrying and may be done from behind a
sofa with a small Balvenie whisky in hand.”
Nikos Karnesis’ tale
How did you get started in LISA Pathfinder?
My journey alongside LISA Pathfinder began
when I joined the Institute of Space
Sciences of Catalonia (IEEC-CSIC) as a PhD
candidate. Even back then I started realising
the importance of the mission and the
excitement of the team for the upcoming
launch. As time passed the launch date was
One of LISA Pathfinder’s two test masses.
coming closer and closer, while everybody
was working and preparing for a smooth
mission operations period.
What do you work on, and where do your
main interests lie?
My interests cover a range of topics, like
gravitational wave astronomy and in particular
the science of space-based observatories
like LISA. I mostly focus on the data
analysis techniques used for such instruments
and the relevant statistical tools. I
have also been a member of the developers
team for the data analysis toolbox for LISA
Pathfinder since the start of my PhD studies.
Where are you working now?
After my thesis defence, I moved to the Albert
Einstein Institute in Hannover to continue
my work as part of the LISA Pathfinder
data analysis team. The environment here is
ideal for the individuals that want to work
on topics relevant to gravitational wave astronomy,
instrumentation, and data analysis.
The institute is very well manned with
experts in interferometer metrology, and
theorists that are very experienced in astronomy
and detection problems.
What has been the most interesting thing
about preparing for science operations?
In science, probably the most interesting
part is, surprisingly, the problems that one
encounters along the way! During all these
years that I have been involved in the project
I have participated in many simulations,
endless meetings about software development,
countless discussions about the operation
of LISA Pathfinder, and all with a single
final aim: to solve all of the foreseeable
problems during the mission. Planning,
and attention to the slightest detail of our
experiments, is what keeps us going every
day. The last part is very important for this
type of mission - essentially laboratories in
space - because it is not as straightforward
to adjust and optimise the instrument as we
would do on the ground.
How did you feel when LISA Pathfinder
launched?
Watching the VEGA rocket fly in the air was
an unforgettable experience. I felt moved
and rewarded that the satellite we had been
building for so long was finally put into orbit.
It was also very satisfactory to see smiles
on peoples’ faces that have spent half of
their career working on this mission. I could
only imagine their feelings at this moment.
But at the same time, we soon started realising
that data is going to be flowing soon,
and the work preparing ourselves for operations
will have to be intensified. Suddenly
time seemed short!
Are you looking forward to science operations?
Definitely! We have been preparing for this
for years. Although if we think about the du-
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