An international collaboration of nearly two decades to launch a gravitational-wave astronomy observatory into solar orbit was upended in April with the dissolution of the partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA to build and operate the $2.4 billion Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA. But development of a new ESA-led gravitational-wave mission is already under way, and its advocates say that the likelihood of a LISA-like observatory becoming reality sooner rather than later may have risen considerably as a result of the split.
Since 2007, LISA has been among three large-scale project candidates competing for selection under ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 program. The winner would commence construction in 2015 and be launched in the early 2020s. LISA and the other contenders, the International X-ray Observatory (IXO) and the planetary mission Laplace, have each been developed in 50–50 partnership with NASA. Laplace is Europe’s half of...
