ESA‘s LISA Pathfinder mission has received the 2017 Space Technology Award of the American Astronautical Society (AAS).

This recognition of an exceptional achievement in space technology was awarded to the international LISA Pathfinder team for “delivering and operating a novel spacecraft that clearly demonstrated that a space-based observatory of gravitational waves is within our technical reach“.

Launched in December 2015 and operated between March 2016 and June 2017, this innovative technology demonstrator exceeded all expectations, thus paving the way for ESA’s future full-scale LISA mission, i.e. a constellation of 3 spacecraft linked over millions of kilometres via lasers to be launched in 2034 in order to detect and study Einstein predicted gravitational waves, i.e. ripples in the fabric of space time.

Having developed the LISA Pathfinder Data Handling Software (DHSW), SPACEBEL is proud and honoured to be part of this tremendous success.