Control system design for the constellation acquisition phase of the LISA mission

The objective of the constellation acquisition phase for the LISA mission is to establish the three laser links between the three spacecraft of the LISA constellation so that the interferometric measurements for the science experiment can commence. The laser beam acquisition for LISA is extremely challenging given the 5 million km distance between the spacecraft, the inherent limits of the attitude sensors accuracy, the orbit determination accuracy issues and the time required to phase-lock the incoming and outgoing laser signals. This paper presents the design of the control system for the acquisition phase of the LISA constellation: the acquisition operational procedure is outlined, guidance laws are defined together with the Gyro Mode attitude control principle, which implements a Kalman filter for disturbances rejection purposes. Constellation-wide non-linear simulations demonstrate that the LISA constellation acquisition phase is feasible by means of the proposed control strategy.