LISA PATHFINDER CAGE AND VENT MECHANISM - DEVELOPMENT AND QUALIFICATION

The Cage and Vent Mechanism (CVM) is one of the core devices of the LISA Technology Package to be flown on the LISA Pathfinder Mission, a technology demonstrator for a potential future mission formerly known as LISA. The Cage and Vent Mechanism as part of the Inertial Sensor System (ISS) shall cage and constrain a Test Mass (TM) during launch and later, hand-over the TM to the Grabbing, Positioning and Release Mechanism (GPRM). The GPRM is designed to release the TM into a perfect free-fall within the enclosing Electrode Housing (EH), which itself is used to control and measure the TM using electrostatic forces. The development and qualification of the CVM is described in this paper. See [1] and [3] for further information on GPRM.