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
Sep 12, 2019
 2020 New Horizons in Physics Prize for Samaya Nissanke The LISA Consortium congratulates science team member Dr. Samaya Nissanke, assistant...
Dec 12, 2019
 NASA Award for AEI Researchers: US space agency honors German team’s contributions to laser instrument on board GRACE Follow-On A group of 47 researchers in Germany received a NASA award for their teamwork on the...
Mar 06, 2020
 European Astronomical Society: LISA Pathfinder Principal Investigator Stefano Vitale awarded the 2020 Tycho Brahe Medal The European Astronomical Society (EAS) awards the 2020 Tycho Brahe Medal to Prof....
Sep 01, 2020
 The 13th International LISA Symposium September 1-3, 2020 The 13th International LISA Symposium featured a program dedicated to gravitational wave...
Jun 03, 2020
 New movie about LISA, the first gravitational wave observatory in space On the occasion of the 236th meeting of the American Astronomical Society the LISA...

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topicsort ascending Image Title
Papers LISA Brown Bag & GW Notes
Mar 07, 2011
 Papers A source-free integration method for black hole perturbations and self-force computation: Radial fall
Oct 19, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral Fellowship in Theoretical and Gravitational Wave Astrophysics at NBIA
Nov 28, 2023
 Positions Scientific software developer in computational astrophysics at the University of the Balearic Islands, SPAIN
Positions PhD or Masters by Research positions – University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Nov 01, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral Positions at the RIT’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation
Feb 01, 2023
 Positions Embedded Flight Software Engineer (m/f/d) “Scientific Instrumentation for Space Applications”
Oct 11, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral fellowship at the National University of Singapore
Nov 08, 2023
 Positions Project Manager (m/f/d) for the Interferometric Detection System (IDS) of LISA at AEI Hannover
Oct 19, 2023
 Positions Three Postdoctoral Positions in astroparticle physics at INFN and Turin U
Nov 28, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral positions on GW physics at TianQin
Positions ESA Archival Research Visitor Programme
Sep 29, 2023
 Positions 3 Year LISA focused Postdoctoral Position in Montana
Nov 02, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral and scientific software developer positions in gravitational wave physics, Palma, Spain
Oct 12, 2023
 Positions PTA postdoctoral position at Vanderbilt University

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