LISA reaches a crucial milestone

The future gravitational-wave observatory in space completes a rigorous review

© NASA/JPL-Caltech/NASAEA/ESA/CXC/STScl/GSFCSVS/S.Barke (CC BY 4.0)

LISA Pathfinder - A Space Saga

Relive the groundbreaking technology demonstrator's mission milestones 5 years ago in a new Youtube mini-series released by the LISA Consortium.

LISA Pathfinder being encapsulated within the Vega rocket. © ESA–Manuel Pedoussaut

13th LISA Symposium talks are online

Find out about the exciting future of gravitational wave astrophysics in space!

Artist's impression of a LISA spacecraft. © AEI/MM/exozet

ESA ministers commit to biggest ever budget

The significant boost in funding for ESA’s world-class and inspirational science programme will allow the first gravitational wave detector in space, LISA, to fly alongside the black hole mission Athena.

ESA’s Council at Ministerial Level, Space19+, has concluded in Seville, Spain, with the endorsement of the most ambitious plan to date for the future of ESA and the whole European space sector. Image: ESA

Why we need a gravitational wave observatory in space

The science case for LISA

Merging Black Holes. Credit: T. Pyle/LIGO

The Gravitational Universe

Illuminating the dark universe with a new astronomy

Artist's impression of supermassive black hole. Credit: ESA/NASA, AVO project, Paolo Padovani.

LISA: A New Astronomy

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

Artist's impression of LISA satellite. Credit: AEI/MM/exozet
The LISA Mission Homepage

LISA - observing gravitational waves in space

LISA will be a large-scale space mission designed to detect one of the most elusive phenomena in astronomy - gravitational waves. With LISA we will be able to observe the entire universe directly with gravitational waves, learning about the formation of structure and galaxies, stellar evolution, the early universe, and the structure and nature of spacetime itself.

The LISA Pathfinder Mission successfully paved the way for the LISA mission by demonstrating the key technologies for a large gravitational wave observatory in space. The results show that LISA Pathfinder is working to a precision better than required for LISA. The LISA Pathfinder mission was launched on 3rd December 2015 and ended in July 2017. 

The LISA Consortium

The LISA Consortium is committed to supporting the LISA mission. It includes all the main investigators involved in the highly successful LISA Pathfinder mission, a number of scientists who worked on the ground-based LIGO, Virgo, and GEO projects, and a number who worked on the Laser Ranging Interferometer on the GRACE Follow-On mission, thus making full use of the expertise accumulated so far. The LISA Consortium proposed and submitted the white paper The Gravitational Universe which was accepted for the ESA L3 slot.

If you are a scientist and wish to contribute to the LISA mission, use this scientist registration form.

A new frontier for exploring the physical universe

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Latest news and consortium activities

Date Title Summary
May 23, 2013
 ESA’s next large mission: LISA white paper submitted We have come remarkably far using light of different spectrums as our tool for observing...
Aug 15, 2016
 U.S. National Academies Report recommends NASA restore support for LISA New Worlds New Horizons: A Midterm Assessment – the National Academies released their...
Sep 01, 2020
 The 13th International LISA Symposium September 1-3, 2020 The 13th International LISA Symposium featured a program dedicated to gravitational wave...
Jan 16, 2015
 ESA announces LISA Pathfinder launch for September 2015 In the first press release of 2015, ESA today announced the September launch window of...
May 20, 2013
 LPF scheduled for launch in 2015 The LISA consortium strongly supports ESA's LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission, whose launch...

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topic Imagesort descending Title
Apr 27, 2014
 Papers Environmental Effects for Gravitational-wave Astrophysics
Positions ESA Archival Research Visitor Programme
Feb 07, 2023
 Positions Notre Dame Postdoc Positions available, University of Notre Dame’s Society of Science Fellows
Jan 18, 2013
 Papers On the complementarity of pulsar timing and space laser interferometry for the individual detection of supermassive black hole binaries
Mar 18, 2023
 Conferences Rencontres de Moriond and GRAM Colloquium on Gravitation, March 18-25 2023
Feb 24, 2023
 Positions Flight Software Engineer (m/f/d) "Scientific Instrumentation for Space Applications"
Sep 26, 2016
 Papers The effect of matter structure on the gravitational waveform
Oct 19, 2022
 Positions Postdoc at Precision Interferometry and Fundamental Interactions Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover
Mar 10, 2023
 Positions Assistant professor position in Astronomy and Astrophysics at University of Pisa
Jan 06, 2012
 Papers LISA: Astrophysics and cosmology in the millihertz regime
Positions Fellowships at the Nottingham Centre of Gravity
Feb 07, 2023
 Positions PhD position in Gravitational Wave Physics (m/f/d, TV-L E13, 50%) Faculty of Science, Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Tübingen
May 15, 2014
 Papers Self-force driven motion in curved spacetimes
Dec 20, 2022
 Positions PhD positions available at the UWA Gravitational-Wave Astronomy Group
Mar 31, 2023
 Conferences 39th Pacific Coast Gravity Meeting, Caltech, March 31 - April 1, 2023

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