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
Nov 14, 2023
 Conferences 2nd Einstein Telescope Annual Meeting Nov 14 – 17, 2023, IJCLab, Paris
Nov 13, 2023
 Conferences Fourth European Physical Society Conference on Gravitation: Black Holes, November 13-15, 2023, Valencia
Nov 06, 2023
 Conferences Gravitational Wave Probes of Physics Beyond Standard Model, November 6-9 2023, Osaka, Japan
Oct 26, 2023
 Conferences ET-PP/ET-EIB workshop: Computing and Data Requirements, October 26-27 2023, Geneva
Oct 24, 2023
 Conferences GraSP23 - GravityShapePisa 2023, October 24-27 at University of Pisa
Oct 13, 2023
 Conferences Windows on the Universe: Establishing the Infrastructure for a Collaborative Multi-messenger Ecosystem, October 13-18, 2023, Tucson
Oct 04, 2023
 Conferences 2023 Lunar GW Workshop: Merging Lunar Exploration with Multi-Messenger Revolution, October 4-6 2023, Nashville
Oct 01, 2023
 Conferences Astroinformatics 2023, October 1-6 2023, Naples
Sep 29, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral Positions at the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, TIFR, Mumbai
Sep 29, 2023
 Positions Two-year post-doctoral research fellowship in strong gravity at University of Aveiro
Sep 29, 2023
 Positions 3 Year LISA focused Postdoctoral Position in Montana
Sep 29, 2023
 Positions Postdoctoral position in gravitational physics at University of New Brunswick
Sep 29, 2023
 Positions 2024 Yale Mossman Postdoctoral Fellowship
Sep 29, 2023
 Positions Data Analysis Postdoctoral position at the LIGO Laboratory
Sep 28, 2023
 Positions Grant 2year postdoc position for ET: Precision polarimetry for the development of third generation gravitational interferometers

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