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
Jul 08, 2019
 Discovering exoplanets with gravitational waves In a recent paper in Nature Astronomy, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for...
May 23, 2019
 ESA: A unique experiment to explore black holes What happens when two supermassive black holes collide? Combining the observing power of...
Apr 18, 2019
 Public talk / live stream: The Gravitational Wave Astronomical Revolution - Dr. David Reitze As part of the 4th LISA Consortium Meeting, Dr. David Reitze will give a public talk on...
Feb 28, 2019
 A high-precision test bench for LISA technology AEI researchers develop novel precise laboratory setup to verify technology for LISA, the...
Sep 14, 2018
 Another milestone for LISA: Further investigations confirm LISA Pathfinder's success Latest investigations confirmed that LISA Pathfinder has demonstrated the feasibility of...

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topic Image Title
May 23, 2023
 Positions PhD on the Preparation and Exploitation of Euclid data for Gravitational Wave cosmology in Aix-Marseille & Rome
May 21, 2023
 Conferences GWADW 2023, May 21-27, La Biodola (Elba)
May 16, 2023
 Positions Product Owner (m/f/d) “Phasemeter for LISA” at AEI
May 11, 2023
 Positions PhD Positions in Numerical Relativity in Jena
May 09, 2023
 Positions Assistant Professor position in Perugia for experimental GW research
May 05, 2023
 Positions Researcher in LISA data preprocessing at SYRTE, Paris Observatory
May 03, 2023
 Positions Nominations sought for the position of Director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam
May 03, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral position in Quantum Gravity, Supergravity, String Theory at AEI
May 03, 2023
 Positions PhD position in Quantum Gravity, Supergravity, String Theory at AEI
May 03, 2023
 Positions Professorship for Computational Astrophysics at University of Tübingen
Apr 26, 2023
 Positions Flight Software Engineer (m/f/d) “Scientific Instrumentation for Space Applications” at AEI
Apr 13, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral positions at Kyoto University
Apr 13, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral Research Associate at Fermilab, Computational Science and Artificial Intelligence Directorate
Apr 05, 2023
 Positions Professor in Asteroseismology, Binary Evolution & Gravitational Wave Progenitors at KU Leuven
Apr 05, 2023
 Positions 3 Positions in Theoretical GW Physics at Charles University Prague

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