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

nix

Latest news and consortium activities

Date Title Summary
Jun 07, 2016
 Replay Livestream of LISA Pathfinder Press Conference You can watch a replay of the live stream of the LISA Pathfinder press conference in...
Dec 10, 2014
 Preparing the team: Operations test The LISA Pathfinder science team, together with the Science and Technology Operations...
May 24, 2012
 Getting ready for next time: European gravitational wave community strengthens space collaboration The LISA mission was reported to have been unanimously ranked first by ESA´s scientific...
Jun 24, 2016
 LISA Pathfinder completes first operations phase ESA: LISA Pathfinder completes first operations phase on 25 June and will continue...
Mar 06, 2020
 European Astronomical Society: LISA Pathfinder Principal Investigator Stefano Vitale awarded the 2020 Tycho Brahe Medal The European Astronomical Society (EAS) awards the 2020 Tycho Brahe Medal to Prof....

Pages

Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topic Imagesort descending Title
Jan 24, 2023
 Positions Open positions at the Max Plack Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Hannover, Germany in experimental and instrumental physics
Dec 11, 2023
 Conferences 32nd Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, December 11-15 2023 in Shanghai
Sep 22, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral positions in Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astrophysics at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam
Sep 26, 2011
 Papers Gravitational Radiation in Horava Gravity
Oct 24, 2023
 Conferences GraSP23 - GravityShapePisa 2023, October 24-27 at University of Pisa
Sep 06, 2023
 Positions Computational physics tenure track position at Bard College
Apr 28, 2014
 Papers Space-borne Gravitational Wave Observatories
Positions PhD or Masters by Research positions – University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Aug 16, 2023
 Positions Postdoc position in gravitational waves theory at the University of Jena
Sep 14, 2023
 Positions Tenure-Track Professor in Physics at Harvard University
May 04, 2011
 Papers Fourth order indirect integration method for black hole perturbations: even modes
Dec 02, 2023
 Conferences Intermediate-Mass Black Holes: The dawn of a revolutionary era, December 2-5 2023, San Pedro, Belize
Nov 14, 2023
 Conferences 2nd Einstein Telescope Annual Meeting Nov 14 – 17, 2023, IJCLab, Paris
Sep 26, 2023
 Positions Professor / Director at The Australian National University Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics (CGA) in Canberra
Sep 14, 2014
 Papers From Boltzmann equations to steady wall velocities

Pages