2011 Mission Changes
On April 8th 2011, it was announced in a press release made through NASA's LISA Project Office, that, based on the United States President's Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request, NASA would likely be unable to continue participating in the LISA project. As a result, the European Space Agency has ended its study of LISA as a partnership at the scale initially proposed in the New Worlds New Horizons decadal survey. Revised mission concepts will be considered in a selection process commencing in February 2012. A decision is expected in April 2012.
A future minor role for NASA in the ESA-led mission has not been ruled out. NASA's Astrophysics Division plans to continue base funding for the LISA study team through FY11, assuming not-larger-than-anticipated cuts from the U.S. Congress.
LISA was originally recommended in the 2010 U.S. National Research Council decadal report on astronomy and astrophysics as one of two large space missions to be implemented by NASA in the upcoming decade. The report recommended that LISA start in 2016, after a successful LISA Pathfinder flight and selection in the ESA Cosmic Vision program, which would have enabled launch in 2025.
Read more about this topic: Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
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“Every Age has its own peculiar faith.... Any attempt to translate into facts the mission of one Age with the machinery of another, can only end in an indefinite series of abortive efforts. Defeated by the utter want of proportion between the means and the end, such attempts might produce martyrs, but never lead to victory.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)