ATHENA
Early vision of the spacecraft.
ATHENA
Mission Overview
ATHENA, the Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics, will be developed as L-Class mission for launch in the early 2030s. The Wide-Field Imager (WFI) is proposed as its imaging camera. The WFI will provide imaging in the 0.1-15 keV energy band over a wide field, simultaneously with spectrally and time-resolved photon counting. The instrument is designed to make optimal use of ATHENA mirror system, providing a 40'x40' field of view with an angular resolution of 5". The WFI is a very powerful survey instrument, significantly surpassing currently existing capabilities. In addition, the WFI will provide unprecedented simultaneous high-time resolution and high count rate capabilities for the observation of bright sources with low pile-up and high efficiency.
Our institute is highly interested in this X-ray observatory, as it is key to combine measurements from different wavelength regimes to unveil the objects to be studied, such as star formation regions.
Contribution of our Team
We will contribute the ICPU (Instrument Control and Power Supply Unit) SW to the ATHENA Wide-Field Imager. Corresponding hardware will come from our partners IWF/RUAG as well as from international partners (e.g. filter wheel controller, harness). The flight software which will be developed in house. As main processor we foresee to use the GR740 board. Our developments build on our CHEOPS and ASAP LeanOS expertise.
Involved Personnel
Management, Science Lead: F. Kerschbaum, M. Güdel
Development Lead: R. Ottensamer
Consortium Members: F. Kerschbaum (Board Member), M. Güdel, R. Ottensamer
WP Lead 13000 "ICPU Development": R. Ottensamer
Team: M. Güdel, F. Kerschbaum, A. Luntzer, R. Ottensamer
Next important Milestones
Instrument proposal submission: 2019
Launch Date: mid 2030s
Funding
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