About LISA

2012 is an important date for the LISA programme. Following years of intense collaboration with NASA on the LISA mission, ESA decided early 2011 to redefine a gravitational wave mission in a Europe-only context. This is the New Gravitational wave Observatory  or NGO mission (also known in the community as eLISA, for Evolved LISA), which competes together with an X-ray observatory (ATHENA) and a mission to the moons of Jupiter (JUICE) to the Large mission slot of the Cosmic Vision program of ESA. The final selection is expected early May, that is only a few days before the LISA Symposium in Paris. This promises lively discussions during the Symposium. Meanwhile, the preparation for  the LISAPathfinder mission is moving forward towards a launch scheduled mid-2014 and the community worldwide is  discussing future plans for  the detection of gravitational waves on ground and in space, all this effort leading to the development of  a new field : gravitational wave observational astrophysics.