Athena: Assessment Phase Activities
Abstract
The Athena mission concept has been proposed by the community in response to science themes of the Hot and Energetic Universe. Unlike other, competitive, mission selection exercises this "Large" class observatory mission has essentially been pre-selected. Nevertheless it has to be demonstrated that Athena meets the programmatic constraints of 1Bn euro cost cap, and a readiness level appropriate for formal mission adoption by the end 2019. This should be confirmed through a Phase A study conducted with two parallel industry activities. We describe the technical and programmatic content of these and latest progress in space and ground segment definition.
- Publication:
-
Exploring the Hot and Energetic Universe: The first scientific conference dedicated to the Athena X-ray observatory
- Pub Date:
- September 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015eheu.conf....2L