LISA is a space-based gravitational wave observatory building on the success of LISA Pathfinder and LIGO.
Led by ESA, the LISA mission is a collaboration of ESA, NASA, and an international consortium of scientists LISA consists of three spacecraft that are separated by millions of miles and trailing tens of millions of miles, more than one hundred times the distance to the Moon, behind the Earth as we orbit the Sun. These three spacecraft relay laser beams back and forth between the different spacecraft and the signals are combined to search for gravitational wave signatures that come from distortions of spacetime. We need a giant detector bigger than the size of Earth to catch gravitational waves from orbiting black holes hundreds of millions of times more massive than our sun. NASA is a major collaborator in the European Space Agency (ESA)-led mission, which is scheduled to launch in the early 2030s and we are getting ready for it now!
Organization
Launch Date
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Class
Flight Project
Website
LISA is a space-based gravitational wave observatory building on the success of LISA Pathfinder and LIGO.
Led by ESA, the LISA mission is a collaboration of ESA, NASA, and an international consortium of scientists LISA consists of three spacecraft that are separated by millions of miles and trailing tens of millions of miles, more than one hundred times the distance to the Moon, behind the Earth as we orbit the Sun. These three spacecraft relay laser beams back and forth between the different spacecraft and the signals are combined to search for gravitational wave signatures that come from distortions of spacetime. We need a giant detector bigger than the size of Earth to catch gravitational waves from orbiting black holes hundreds of millions of times more massive than our sun. NASA is a major collaborator in the European Space Agency (ESA)-led mission, which is scheduled to launch in the early 2030s and we are getting ready for it now!
Related Publications
2025.
"Gravitational-Wave Signatures of Massive Black Hole Formation.",
Classical and Quantum Gravity,
[10.1088/1361-6382/ae2413]
[Journal Article/Letter]
2025.
"Waveform modelling for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.",
Living Reviews in Relativity,
28
(1):
9
[10.1007/s41114-025-00056-1]
[Journal Article/Letter]
2024.
"In-depth analysis of LISA Pathfinder performance results: Time evolution, noise projection, physical models, and implications for LISA.",
Physical Review D,
110
(4):
042004
[10.1103/physrevd.110.042004]
[Journal Article/Letter]
2019.
"LISA Pathfinder Performance Confirmed in an Open-Loop Configuration: Results from the Free-Fall Actuation Mode.",
Physical Review Letters,
123
(11):
111101
[10.1103/physrevlett.123.111101]
[Journal Article/Letter]
2019.
"Novel methods to measure the gravitational constant in space.",
Physical Review D,
100
(6):
062003
[10.1103/physrevd.100.062003]
[Journal Article/Letter]
