LISA: Global Space Science and New Zealand’s Contribution

Most topics that were discussed at the Foreign Policy School were concerned with issues arising in the realm of our planet: satellites on terrestrial orbits, rockets leaving Earth and debris falling back down onto it. They are all bound by the pull exerted by the Earth’s gravitational field. In contrast, the LISA mission transcends this limitation by sending satellites into orbits around the Sun. In this chapter, we present the scientific goals of LISA, its technological development from the early 1990s until now and hint at the opportunities that it can offer to the academic, educational and industrial sectors of New Zealand.