The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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The primary scientific goal of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission is to detect and observe gravitational waves from massive black holes and galactic binaries with periods in the range of a few seconds to a few hours (i.e. in the frequency range 10-4 to 10-1 Hz). This low-frequency range is inaccessible to ground-based interferometers because of the unshieldable background of local gravitational noise arising from atmospheric effects and seismic activity. Ground-based interferometers are also physically limited in length to a few kilometres, restricting their coverage to events such as supernova core collapses and binary neutron star mergers.