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 13, 2017
 LISA Pathfinder: Bake, rattle and roll The final days of the LISA Pathfinder mission are some of the busiest, as controllers...
Jun 20, 2017
 Gravitational Wave mission selected, planet-hunting mission moves forward The LISA trio of satellites to detect gravitational waves from space has been selected...
Apr 17, 2017
 NASA Team Explores Using LISA Pathfinder as a 'Comet Crumb' Detector LISA Pathfinder, a mission led by the European Space Agency (ESA) with contributions from...
Apr 04, 2017
 The LISA Consortium mourns Pierre Binetruy Pierre was one of the greatest scientists in the LISA community, an overwhelming driving...
Jan 13, 2017
 The L3 LISA Mission proposal was submitted today! LISA Mission L3 Proposal submitted to ESA

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topic Image Title
Jan 03, 2023
 Positions PhD positions in “Precision Interferometry and Fundamental Interactions” at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, AEI Hannover
Dec 06, 2022
 Positions PhD and postdoctoral positions in Continuous Gravitational Wave research at AEI Hannover
Oct 19, 2022
 Positions Postdoc at Precision Interferometry and Fundamental Interactions Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover
Mar 28, 2017
 Papers Science with the space-based interferometer LISA. V: Extreme mass-ratio inspirals
Mar 21, 2017
 Papers Reconstructing the dark sector interaction with LISA
Nov 17, 2016
 Papers A Second Higgs Doublet in the Early Universe: Baryogenesis and Gravitational Waves
Oct 12, 2016
 Papers Gravitational waves at interferometer scales and primordial black holes in axion inflation
Oct 11, 2016
 Papers Distinguishing between formation channels for binary black holes with LISA
Sep 26, 2016
 Papers The effect of matter structure on the gravitational waveform
Sep 14, 2014
 Papers From Boltzmann equations to steady wall velocities
Jul 20, 2014
 Papers A fully relativistic radial fall
May 15, 2014
 Papers Self-force driven motion in curved spacetimes
Apr 29, 2014
 Papers Strong Binary Pulsar Constraints on Lorentz Violation in Gravity
Apr 28, 2014
 Papers Space-borne Gravitational Wave Observatories
Apr 27, 2014
 Papers Environmental Effects for Gravitational-wave Astrophysics

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