LISA is led by the European Space Agency, with NASA as a partner. In Europe, the Max Planck Albert Einstein Institute is the lead for the LISA Consortium. In the US, NASA Goddard is the lead center, with Marshall and JPL also contributing. On both continents, scientists at many (tens of) institutions are contributing technology and observational […]
LISA´s payload consists of two identical units on each spacecraft. Each unit contains a Gravitational Reference Sensor (GRS) with an embedded free-falling test mass that acts both as end point of the optical length measurement and as geodesic reference test particle. A telescope transmits the laser light along the arm and also receives the weak light (few hundred pico-Watts!) from the other end. Laser interferometry is performed on an optical bench in between the telescope and the […]