

%At the time of this writing 
The two LIGO detectors are the flagship nodes of the International Gravitational Wave Network (IGWN). The other nodes include (i) the Virgo detector in Cascina, Italy, operated by the European Gravitational-wave Observatory (EGO) and the Virgo collaboration~\cite{VIRGO:2014yos}, and (ii) the KAGRA detector that is part of the Kamioka Observatory complex in Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan~\cite{KAGRA:2020tym}.

In addition to these existing detectors, construction of a new observatory site by the LIGO-India project and funded by the Government of India is ramping up and will utilize the existing components of a third Advanced-LIGO detector, which the National Science Foundation is contributing to the project. This detector will be sited near Aundha Nagnath, Hingoli District in the State of Maharashtra, and will be designated LIGO Aundha Observatory (LAO). Working in close collaboration with the LIGO Laboratory, the LIGO-India Project aims to bring the LAO detector into operation with A+/O5 sensitivity early in the next decade. The Aundha, Hanford, and Livingston observatories will operate 
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as a single 
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LIGO Global Network, a subset of IGWN. The scientific impact of operating three LIGO detectors of comparable sensitivity on a very long baseline will greatly expand the contributions to multi-messenger astronomy by the larger International Gravitational Wave Network~\cite{Saleem:2021iwi}.

The LIGO-India Project was formally sanctioned by the Government of India on April 6, 2023 with a budget of 2600 crore rupees (\$315M US equivalent). Construction is currently planned for completion in April 2030.  The LAO detector is slated to begin operations and observations in the early 2030s in the A+ configuration (comparable to the LIGO Hanford and Livingston detectors' configuration at the start of the O5 Observing run in the latter half of 2026).   

%LIGO-India was granted in-principle project approval in March 2016 and final project approval in April 2023. STATUS \& PROJECTED TIMELINES FOR CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION