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
Oct 03, 2017
 Nobel Prize 2017 in Physics for Gravitational Waves Rainer Weiss, Kip S. Thorne and Barry C. Barish of the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration receive...
Apr 04, 2017
 The LISA Consortium mourns Pierre Binetruy Pierre was one of the greatest scientists in the LISA community, an overwhelming driving...
Dec 13, 2016
 LISA Pathfinder's pioneering mission continues: Mission gets a six month extension On 7 December, LISA Pathfinder started the extended phase of its mission, an additional...
Jul 13, 2017
 LISA Pathfinder: Bake, rattle and roll The final days of the LISA Pathfinder mission are some of the busiest, as controllers...
Nov 30, 2016
 Advanced LIGO detectors begin 2nd observation run AEI researchers expect new discoveries from LIGO instruments On Wednesday, 30 November,...

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topic Imagesort ascending Title
Oct 24, 2023
 Positions Scheduler for LISA instruments at Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Dec 01, 2023
 Positions PhD Studentships at the University of Birmingham
Nov 17, 2016
 Papers A Second Higgs Doublet in the Early Universe: Baryogenesis and Gravitational Waves
Sep 22, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral positions in Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astrophysics at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam
Nov 07, 2023
 Positions Assistant Professor in Time-Domain Astronomy at University of Florida
May 11, 2000
 Papers Fast and Accurate Computation Tools for Gravitational Waveforms from Binary Systems with any Orbital Eccentricity
Positions PhD Scholarships – Statistics and Gravitational Wave Science for LISA, New Zealand
Oct 12, 2023
 Positions PTA postdoctoral position at Vanderbilt University
Nov 21, 2023
 Positions Project Manager (m/f/d) for Space Department at AEI Hannover
Apr 24, 2014
 Papers Data Analysis Methods for Testing Alternative Theories of Gravity with LISA Pathfinder
Dec 06, 2023
 Conferences 10th International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology: New Horizons and Singularities in Gravity, Dec 6-9 2023 in India
Oct 24, 2023
 Positions Risk Manager for LISA Instruments at Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Jan 28, 2024
 Conferences Nordic Winter School on Multimessenger Astrophysics, January 28 - February 2, 2024, Skeikampen, Norway
Oct 11, 2016
 Papers Distinguishing between formation channels for binary black holes with LISA
Nov 27, 2023
 Conferences 12th Australasian Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (ACGRG), November 27 - December 1, 2023, Hobart

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