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

LISA Pathfinder tracera la voie vers la mission eLISA en testant, dans l’espace, le concept (les principes ?) de la détection d’ondes gravitationnelles.

L'endroit le plus silencieux du système solaire

LISA Pathfinder (LPF) placera deux masses d’épreuve en "chute libre" quasi parfaite, contrôlera et mesurera leur mouvement relatif avec une précision inégalée. Ceci sera effectué grâce à des thechnologies innovantes telles que des senseurs inertiels, un système de métrologie laser, un système à compensation de trainée et des micro-propulseurs délivrant des micro-Newton. L’ensemble de ces masses d’épreuve et leur environnement constitueront probablement un des endroits les plus "calmes" du système solaire.

Toutes ces technologies sont non seulement essentielles pour la mission eLISA, elles seront également à la base de toutes les missions qui voudront tester la théorie de la relativitié générale d’Einstein.

LPF sera lancé en novembre 2015.

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
Nov 30, 2023
 Positions Permanent position Research Engineer (CNRS Mobility)
Nov 30, 2023
 Positions Postdoc in Gravitational Wave Data Analysis in Utrecht
Nov 28, 2023
 Positions Postdocs available at the RIT’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation (CCRG)
Nov 28, 2023
 Positions Scientific software developer in computational astrophysics at the University of the Balearic Islands, SPAIN
Nov 28, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral positions on GW physics at TianQin
Nov 28, 2023
 Positions Permanent AI/computing facilitator position at URI
Nov 27, 2023
 Conferences 12th Australasian Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (ACGRG), November 27 - December 1, 2023, Hobart
Nov 27, 2023
 Conferences 32nd Workshop on General Relativity and Gravitation, November 27 - December 1, 2023 in Japan
Nov 22, 2023
 Positions Postdoc on LISA and Einstein Telescope Data Analysis at Utrecht University
Nov 21, 2023
 Positions Project Manager (m/f/d) for Space Department at AEI Hannover
Nov 21, 2023
 Positions PostDoc position in Gravitational Wave Physics at Nikhef
Nov 21, 2023
 Positions Postdoc position at University of Western Australia
Nov 21, 2023
 Positions Faculty Position in Theoretical Gravitational Physics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Nov 21, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral position at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Nov 21, 2023
 Positions Tenure Track Position in Multimessenger and Gravitational Wave Astronomy at Oregon State University

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