UKRI-2121 LISA Optical Bench Baseplate

Text to be corrected in the original notice: Place of text to be modified: Time limit for receipt of tender or requests to participate Instead of: 28 July 2022 Time: 11:00 Read New: 30 August 2022 Time: 11:00 Other additional information: The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement. The LISA concept for directly detecting the oscillating strain in spacetime caused by gravitational waves shares the scheme used in all laser interferometer-based gravitational wave detectors: The passage of the wave is detected by measuring the time-varying changes of optical pathlength between test masses isolated from all forces other than gravitational waves.

The project draws on experience gleaned from the LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission, a pioneering mission to test the LISA concept and demonstrate key concepts and technologies. A key technology to the LISA mission is performing interferometry with hydroxide catalysis bonded optics and this was demonstrated on LPF.