Dear Friends of LISA,

the LISA mission is getting ready for the start of two parallel industrial Phase A studies this spring and our collaboration will now have to morph into a real project. The LISA Consortium used to be a rather informal gathering of interested scientists, and joining the Consortium proceeded by self-appointment. Since in the future phases of the mission the LISA Consortium will be the body that delivers something to the project, we will have to change our procedures and become a bit more formal.

Membership in the Consortium will in the future come in two flavors:

• Core members who enter into a commitment to deliver something to the mission. They will be the ones who shape the mission and are involved in all decisions that the Consortium is allowed to take.
• Associate members will be doing science related to LISA and working in the science working groups, but they will not have to commit to deliverables and will have limited access to information.

Membership will be reviewed at the beginning and in yearly intervals.

We are now ready to reboot the Consortium and ask you to apply. You will find all necessary information on the Application Portal here:

https://signup.lisamission.org

Note: it is expected that most applications will be in the form of a group application, with a group lead, but individual (groups of size 1) applications are also accepted. A group application can contain a mix of Core and Associate members.

At the application portal you will find the Consortium Management Plan, an Application Description Document, an Application Template, and Example Draft Applications. You will see that the process is fairly light, and I would be grateful if all people interested in being a LISA Consortium Member during the upcoming Phase A could submit there applications before the next LISA Consortium Meeting on April 9-11 in Hannover. The applications will then be reviewed and our intention is to have the whole reboot process complete by May, so we can switch to the new mailing lists for Core Members and Associate Members. It is expected that the procedures will be reviewed and adapted to our needs in future project phases B, C, D, and E.

This is an exciting time. It is now 25 years after we submitted the first LISA proposal, and finally we are getting serious. LISA will fly and there is no time to lose!

Cheers, Karsten