An acquisition control for the laser interferometer space antenna

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission is a planned gravitational wave detector consisting of three spacecraft in heliocentric orbit. Laser interferometry is used to measure distance fluctuations between test masses aboard each spacecraft to the picometre level over a 5 million km separation. The disturbance reduction system comprises the pointing and positioning control of the spacecraft, electrostatic suspension control of the test masses and point-ahead and acquisition control. This paper presents an approach for the acquisition control of the LISA formation. The approach establishes one link at a time. For each link, it defocuses the incoming beams to make its light detectable by the receiving spacecraft. Simulations are performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.