This timelapse video shows the preparations for LISA Pathfinder’s launch at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The video spans three weeks, from 12 November 2015 until the launch on 3 December.
Over this period, the spacecraft was attached to the payload adaptor of the Vega launcher, encapsulated within the half-shells of the rocket fairing, transferred to the launcher assembly area, and installed on top of Vega inside the mobile gantry, which was withdrawn shortly before liftoff.
LISA Pathfinder will test key technologies for space-based observation of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of spacetime that are predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Credit: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2015