European Space Agency ESA
Following programmatic shifts in NASA, the collaboration ended in spring 2011 and ESA quickly decided to make all effort to 'rescue' the three L mission concepts (next to LISA an X-ray mission and a mission to the icy moons of Jupiter) by studying 'European-led' versions, based on the technology developed so far.
Building on the previous studies done for LISA, an assessment study for NGO was conducted to establish which mission profile would fit both the main scientific drivers for the mission as well as ESA's budget and schedule constraints. The study was supported on the engineering side by industry (EADS Astrium), ESA's concurrent design facility CDF and the core team at ESA's Science and Robotic Exploration Directorate. The scientific evaluation of the performace of the NGO has been conducted under the coordination of the ESA appointed Science Study Team. The outcome of this study is captured in the study report (the so-called 'Yellow Book').
The technology for NGO is based in very large parts on the technology developed for LISA and for ESA's technology demonstration mission LISA Pathfinder. The Development took place in the last decade, supported in large parts by ESA's CTP and TRP programmes.
