Design of an inertial sensor for space application

LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is a joint mission NASA-ESA for fundamental physics studies, which aims detecting the gravitational waves. Aim of this work is focusing the attention on the Inertial Sensor (IS), the core of the experiment, for what concern quality and reliability issues. To guarantee the required IS quality a careful analysis of the geometrical characteristics and the related manufacturing technologies was performed, being the dimensional and geometrical tolerances very narrow (less than 10 microns). The verification of the geometrical characteristics conformance and the definition of the assembly step required the development of adequate procedures, aiming at guarantee the reliability of the IS output signals.