UK scientists to build the instruments that will explain the Universe

The team will work on the world’s first ever Gravitational Wave Space Observatory thanks to an initial £1.7m of funding from the UK Space Agency.

Glasgow University’s Institute for Gravitational Research and STFC’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) in Edinburgh will develop the optical benches for the European Space Agency’s LISA mission (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). These optical benches are at the core of the laser interferometry measurement system and are essential for detecting gravitational waves.

Scheduled to launch in the 2030s, LISA is expected to build on the success of the LISA Pathfinder mission, which in 2016 successfully demonstrated the technology needed for LISA.

First predicted by Albert Einstein, gravitational waves are tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time generated by cataclysmic events like the merger of black holes. The detection of gravitational waves by the ongoing LIGO project in 2015 marked a new era in astronomy that offers an entirely new way to study the Universe.