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
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....
Dec 12, 2019
 NASA Award for AEI Researchers: US space agency honors German team’s contributions to laser instrument on board GRACE Follow-On A group of 47 researchers in Germany received a NASA award for their teamwork on the...
Nov 28, 2019
 ESA ministers commit to biggest ever budget ESA’s Council at Ministerial Level, Space19+, has concluded in Seville, Spain, with the...
Sep 12, 2019
 2020 New Horizons in Physics Prize for Samaya Nissanke The LISA Consortium congratulates science team member Dr. Samaya Nissanke, assistant...
Jul 26, 2019
 Dead Stars Found Whipping Around Each Other in Minutes Two dead stars have been spotted whipping around each other every seven minutes. The rare...

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Conferences, publications and positions

Date News topic Image Title
Jul 11, 2023
 Conferences Multi-messenger Continuous Gravitational Waves, July 11 – 13, 2023, Amsterdam, NL
Jul 10, 2023
 Conferences European Astronomical Society Annual Meeting, July 10–14, 2023, Kraków, Poland
Jul 10, 2023
 Conferences Gravitational-wave populations: what's next? July 10-14 2023 at University of Milano-Bicocca
Jul 10, 2023
 Conferences Workshop "Infinity on a Gridshell", Copenhagen, Denmark, July 10-13 2023
Jul 03, 2023
 Conferences 2nd MaNiTou Summer School on Gravitational Waves, 3.–8. Juli 2023, Nice/Valrose
Jul 03, 2023
 Conferences 26th Capra Meeting 3-7-July 2023 at The Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Jul 03, 2023
 Conferences XV International Conference on Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology, July 3-7 2023, Gyeongju, Korea
Jun 20, 2023
 Conferences The Transient and Variable Universe Conference, 20-22 June 2023 at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Jun 14, 2023
 Conferences Connecting the dots, June 14 – 16, 2023 at Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Jun 05, 2023
 Conferences Thematic school GWsNS-2023: Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars, 5.–9. June 2023, Aussois, France
Jun 05, 2023
 Conferences 1st Trieste meeting on the physics of gravitational waves, June 5-9 2023 at SISSA
May 27, 2023
 Conferences 10th KAGRA International Workshop (KIW-10), May 27-30, 2023, Taiwan
May 23, 2023
 Positions Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral position in Gravitational Wave Physics at IFAE Barcelona
May 23, 2023
 Positions PhD on the Preparation and Exploitation of Euclid data for Gravitational Wave cosmology in Aix-Marseille & Rome
May 21, 2023
 Conferences GWADW 2023, May 21-27, La Biodola (Elba)

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