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
Dec 02, 2023
 Conferences Intermediate-Mass Black Holes: The dawn of a revolutionary era, December 2-5 2023, San Pedro, Belize
Jan 29, 2024
 Conferences Gravity and Cosmology 2024
Jul 11, 2023
 Conferences Multi-messenger Continuous Gravitational Waves, July 11 – 13, 2023, Amsterdam, NL
Jul 03, 2023
 Conferences XV International Conference on Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology, July 3-7 2023, Gyeongju, Korea
Sep 11, 2023
 Conferences ISAPP 2023 Texel - Exploring the Dark Universe: From Particles to Galaxies, 11 - 17 Sep 2023
Jul 26, 2023
 Conferences ICRC 2023 Conference, July 26-August 3, 2023, Nagoya, Japan
Sep 11, 2023
 Conferences COSMO'23, 11-15 September, Madrid
Jul 23, 2023
 Conferences Understanding cosmological observations, July 23 - August 5, Benasque
Jul 17, 2023
 Conferences North American Einstein Toolkit School and Workshop, July 17-21 2023 at RIT
Sep 20, 2023
 Conferences Asymmetric Binaries meet Fundamental Astro-Physics, 20-22 September at GSSI in L’Aquila
Jun 20, 2023
 Conferences The Transient and Variable Universe Conference, 20-22 June 2023 at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Jul 19, 2023
 Conferences Data analysis challenges for stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds 19-21 July 2023 at CERN
Aug 14, 2023
 Conferences Gravitational Waves meet Amplitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, August 14 – September 1, 2023, ICTP-SAIFR, São Paulo
Positions ESA Archival Research Visitor Programme
May 09, 2023
 Positions Assistant Professor position in Perugia for experimental GW research

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