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
May 23, 2013
 ESA’s next large mission: LISA white paper submitted We have come remarkably far using light of different spectrums as our tool for observing...
May 20, 2013
 LPF scheduled for launch in 2015 The LISA consortium strongly supports ESA's LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission, whose launch...
Apr 07, 2013
 Ready for launch: Heart of LISA Pathfinder space mission tested successfully The optical bench of the LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission is currently being extensively...
Jun 25, 2013
 Latest LISA Pathfinder hardware delivery is 'Jewel in the Crown' A team of scientists from the University of Glasgow has successfully delivered a...
Aug 29, 2013
 LISA Pathfinder: from CAD models to ready-to-fly hardware Optical bench integrated into the core assembly LISA Pathfinder space mission reached...

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topicsort descending Image Title
Jan 28, 2024
 Conferences Nordic Winter School on Multimessenger Astrophysics, January 28 - February 2, 2024, Skeikampen, Norway
May 26, 2024
 Conferences 16th Pisa Meeting on Advanced Detectors, May 26 -June 1, 2024, La Biodola, Italy
Nov 27, 2023
 Conferences 32nd Workshop on General Relativity and Gravitation, November 27 - December 1, 2023 in Japan
Nov 27, 2023
 Conferences 12th Australasian Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (ACGRG), November 27 - December 1, 2023, Hobart
Dec 15, 2023
 Conferences Fundamental Physics at the Galactic Centre Workshop, December 15&18 2023, Porto
Dec 11, 2023
 Conferences 32nd Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, December 11-15 2023 in Shanghai
Dec 06, 2023
 Conferences 3rd Einstein Telescope Site Preparation Board Workshop, December 6-7 2023 in Amsterdam
Dec 02, 2023
 Conferences Intermediate-Mass Black Holes: The dawn of a revolutionary era, December 2-5 2023, San Pedro, Belize
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

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