X- and Gamma-ray Astronomy in Europe

I review the capabilities and scientific highlights from Europe's current high-energy astrophysics missions. ESA's XMM-Newton observatory is providing imaging spectroscopy between 0.3-12 keV and high resolution spectroscopy between 0.3-2.5 keV as well as simultaneous optical and UV monitoring. At higher energies, ESA's Integral observatory provides imaging spectroscopy between 15 keV and 10 MeV together with concurrent optical and X-ray monitoring. These two powerful missions are complemented by European access to Suzaku - the Japanese X-ray observatory with its broad-band coverage. It is hoped that these observatories will overlap with the next generation of missions such as the Russian Spectrum-X-Gamma mission which is planned for launch in 2011. SRG will have an advanced payload of X-ray survey telescopes (eRosita) and an all-sky monitor (Lobster) developed by European institutes as well as a Russian hard X-ray imaging camera. Finally, the French-Italian Simbol-X mission which is planned for the 2013 timeframe will provide high-sensitivity 0.5-80 keV images with unprecedented hard X-ray spatial resolution. The first mission chosen from ESA's cosmic vision process can then be expected to be launched in 2017 (if a medium sized mission) or 2018 (if a large mission), hopefully continuing Europe's leading role in high-energy astronomy.