ESA’s LISA Pathfinder received its final commands from Earth on Tuesday, marking the end of a highly successful mission of one and a half years

The LISA Pathfinder has begun its second and final mission phase in its quest to validate the technologies needed for a full-scale mission dedicated to the measurement of gravitational waves.

ESA’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft arrived at its distant worksite, located 1.5 Million Kilometers from Earth for the mission’s ambitious demonstration of cutting edge technology needed for the measurement of gravitational waves, tiny ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity

ESA’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft has wrapped up its three-day checkout sequence and began a series of six propulsive maneuvers to depart Earth and head towards the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1 where it is expected to arrive in late January to begin its demonstration mission of a highly precise distance measurement system and Micro-Propulsion Systems for extremely accurate spacecraft control.