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Wait, is this Eurospeak for never? (We schedule Moon landings the same way across the pond.)

Less flippantly, is LISA funded?




From the PR, it sounds like contractors will be chosen in the next year, which sounds funded to me. But I don’t know Eurospeak either…


The funding status of big science collaborations is always a bit opaque, as there are a lot of individual actors with independent funding streams, and there's always a lot of R&D, the cost of which you can only guess in advance.

Formally ESA has moved the LISA project into a "implementation phase", meaning they intend to build it, but no money has been "pledged" as far as I know. However, LISA is a flagship Space Science programme, and the SSPs are part of the ESA budget all member states must contribute to.

Basically there's a fixed, overall budget that is then split for each project adopted. So there is definitely money but I'm not sure there is a public statement that "this particular pile of money belongs to LISA"


My understanding is that ESA has agreed to fund their portion, but other partners haven't finished that process yet - e.g. the UK's science agency has to go to the treasury and make a case for it. Similar with NASA & the other partners involved.




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