Prospects for Observing Star-forming Galaxies with Future X-ray Missions

We will discuss the prospects for observing star-forming galaxies with future X-ray satellites. In the near term, NuStar will enable hard X-ray observations of galaxies, potentially isolating hard X-ray emission from Ultraluminous X-ray Sources (ULXs) in nearby galaxies. Astro-H will allow the abundances and dynamics of hot gas in nearby galaxies to be studied via calorimeter spectral observations. The International X-ray Observatory (IXO) will have the combined power of high spectral resolution, effective area and spatial resolution to dramatically increase the sensitivity of normal galaxy observations, including mapping hot disk and halo gas and detailed investigations of bright X-ray binaries. Finally, the survey missions eRosita and the Wide Field X-ray Telescope would detect on the order of 10⁴ and 10⁵ star-forming galaxies, respectively. Simulations for these missions will be presented based on current observations of nearby galaxies and implications for evolution from the Chandra Deep Fields. This work was supported in part by NASA Grants NNG04GE13G and SP89004X.