The ASTRO-H Mission: Unprecedented Spectral Coverage in the X-ray and Soft Gamma-Ray Bands

Following in the footsteps of the ASCA and Suzaku satellites, the joint Japan-US-European ``ASTRO-H" space mission is considerably more ambitious and represents a major step forward in our ability to study the high-energy universe. Construction of the satellite is well underway, with an anticipated launch date in late 2015. The unprecedented suite of instruments on Astro-H enables simultaneous observations covering 0.1 to 600 keV, including: calorimeter (~5 eV) energy resolution in the 6-7 keV iron line band, good angular resolution and sensitivity, comparable to NuSTAR, at higher energies due to hard X-ray focusing optics, and significant polarization sensitivity above ~50 keV provided by Compton camera electronics. Here we present examples of the spectra expected in a typical 100 kilosecond observation for several classes of sources, focusing on how the combination of Astro-H's instruments enables us to finally break several of the degeneracies that currently hamper modeling efforts for these sources.