Design and testing of the LISA temperature diagnostic subsystem for prototype

Gravitational waves are a prediction of Einsteins General Relativity recently detected by the onground laser interferometers LIGO. LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is an ESA mission with expected launch in 2034 aiming to detect gravitational radiation by putting three satellites in heliocentric orbit separated 2.5 million km one from each other, forming a triangle. The Gravitational Astronomy group at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE) provided the Data and Diagnostics Subsystems of LISA Pathfinder, a precursor mission launched in December 2015 that successfully proved the key technologies to reach the purest free-fall in space to the date, i.e. down to the sub-femto-g.[5] The group is now leading the Spanish contribution to LISA, which is the Scientific Diagnostic Subsytem (SDS). This subsystem provides several diagnostics sensors that monitors the environment (magnetic, temperature, radiation) to high precision. This project aims to provide a solution to a particular interesting challenge which is the temperature diagnostic subsystem. This system requires to reach sensitivities down to micro-Kelvin to the very stable measuring bandwidth of 1 mHz and even below.