Origins
- 1996 - The Next Generation of X-ray Observatories meeting in Leicester: genesis of the XEUS concept
- 1998 - XEUS concept studied by ESA
- 2004 - Work starts at ESA on the Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) concept for lightweight X-ray mirrors
- 2007 - IXO selected for study by ESA
- 2011 -- Submission of the original Athena mission proposal to ESA. The Athena concept was a reformation of IXO
- 2014 - Selection of revised Athena mission proposal by ESA
- 2022 - Reformulation of Athena announced by ESA
- 2023 - Successful reformulation. ESA SPC approves Athena to go forward for delta-Phase A/B1
Athena is now part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 scientific programme which is being implemented in terms of a number of missions of different sizes, with L-class missions being the flagships of the programme. Three L-class missions are included. The first one was selected in 2012 and is JUICE, a mission to Jupiter’s icy moons due for launch in 2022. For the selection of the L2 and L3 missions, ESA appointed a senior Science Survey Committee (SSC) in 2013 to recommend the scientific themes to be addressed by those two mission opportunities with nominal launch years of 2028 and 2034, respectively. The SSC reviewed over thirty community White Papers and recommended that L2 should address The Hot and Energetic Universe and L3 should address The Gravitational Universe; ESA’s governing bodies adopted that recommendation in November 2013.
The Athena mission was selected in June 2014 as the ESA L2 mission to fulfil the Hot and Energetic Universe theme, making it Europe’s next generation space observatory for high energy astrophysics. As with most ESA missions, Athena is a collaboration between a large number of European nations and also includes contributions from the US (NASA) and Japan (JAXA). The two Athena focal plane instrument consortia are led by France (IRAP) and Germany (MPE).
Progress on the international Athena project since its adoption for study in 2014 has been excellent. ESA issued an Instrument Consortia Consolidation document (ICC), effectively the AO for Athena, in late 2018. The response to the ICC by the two instrument consortia (see below) was fully endorsed by ESA, giving the consortia official status. ESA requested confirmation of support from national agencies in connection with this activity. Phase A was completed in 2019 with the successful passing of theMission Formulation Review (MFR).
The next major milestone for Athena was intended to be the Mission Adoption Review (MAR) in 2023 to be followed by SPC adoption of the mission. But in May 2022 ESA announced that the mission was unaffordable in its then configuration,
A reformulated version of Athena was studied in 2022-2023. This reformulation was successful. ESA SPC endorsement of the reformulated mission occurred in Nov.2023. The new date of the Mission Adoption Review is late 2026, followed by mission adoption in 2027.