Buckle up. The LISA Pathfinder spacecraft prepares to be enclosed within two half-shells of a Vega rocket fairing at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, 16 days before launch. Due to blast off on 2 December at 0415 GMT, the rocket will carry LISA Pathfinder on the first leg of its journey into a low Earth orbit. I will be there to watch the launch and report back on it. If all goes to plan, the fairing will then be jettisoned and the spacecraft will use its own propulsion module to manoeuvre itself into its operational orbit at the first Lagrange point, L1. This is where gravitational forces balance to keep the craft in a stable position between Earth and the sun.
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