ESA Approves Gravitational-Wave Hunting Spacecraft For 2034 (newscientist.com)

The European Space Agency has approved the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission designed to study gravitational waves in space. The spacecraft is slated for launch in in 2034. New Scientist reports: LISA will be made up of three identical satellites orbiting the sun in a triangle formation, each 2.5 million kilometers from the next. The sides of the triangle will be powerful lasers bounced to and fro between the spacecraft. As large objects like black holes move through space they cause gravitational waves, ripples which stretch and squeeze space-time. The LISA satellites will detect how these waves warp space via tiny changes in the distance the laser beams travel. In order to detect these minuscule changes, on scales less than a trillionth of a meter, LISA will have to shrug off cosmic rays and the particles and light from the sun. The LISA Pathfinder mission, a solo probe launched in December 2015, proved that this sensitivity was possible and galvanized researchers working to realize the full LISA mission.

Comments

Re:They cancelled it back in 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

LISA was started as a joint ESA-NASA mission.
Only NASA cancelled their participation in 2011 because of budget
Since then it has been an ESA mission - and it had the support of the agency (reaffirmed in 2013 in the "cosmic vision" mission selection).

So it was never a "bad project" for ESA - you could say the US congress is lacking vision if they reduce NASA's budget so they can't afford missions like that anymore....

Re:Why are they waiting 17 years?

[j-b0y]

Because the technology involved will take some time to develop. You have to have 2 spacecraft pointing a laser at another spacecraft 2,500,000 kilometers away, and measure the change in distance between the two arms to an incredible precision. That's... not easy.

Re:They cancelled it back in 2012

[j-b0y]

LISA was cancelled because JWST was eating the NASA astrophysics budget; ditto IXO cancellation. LISA survived in a much reduced form as NGO, and IXO as ATHENA.

There wasn't any real chance of LISA scooping LIGO/E-LIGO if gravitational waves were really detectable, but the sensitivity of LISA will open up detection of many more classes of GW emitters.