The European Space Agency will lead the mission, which aims to detect gravitational waves in space by measuring distance changes between satellites using laser beams to help better understand black holes, colliding stars and space-time.
“LISA will open a new window into the universe that ground-based observatories cannot access,” said Jeff Hanke, president, space systems, space and mission systems, L3Harris.
“By listening to the low-frequency ripples in space-time across millions of kilometres, LISA allows the study of massive, distant and rare cosmic events that are otherwise invisible.”
The mission will deploy three satellites in a heliocentric orbit, forming a triangular constellation spanning 2.5 million kilometres to measure distance changes smaller than the width of a single atom.
Each satellite will include two L3Harris telescopes capable of transmitting and receiving precision laser beams with the support of ceramic glass.
L3Harris previously manufactured and assembled a full-scale prototype telescope for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) that is guiding the development of flight hardware at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
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