X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy

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X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy ( XEUS ) was a project of the European Space Agency ESA for a new X-ray observatory in space.

With an effective collecting area of ​​5 m² with a photon energy of 1 keV and further developed instruments, XEUS should be over a hundred times more sensitive than the current X-ray observatory of ESA, XMM-Newton . With a primary mirror assembly diameter of 4.2 m and a focal length of 35 m, XEUS was too large for a single spacecraft. Instead, a precisely coordinated formation flight of a main mirror probe with a detector probe was planned. Both should be sent in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point L2 of the sun-earth system, which is about 1.5 million km behind the earth when viewed from the sun.

XEUS was one of the nine mission proposals of the ESA, which were selected in autumn 2007 from a total of 50 proposals as part of the Cosmic Vision process for detailed studies. If the further selection process was successful, XEUS could not have started until 2018 at the earliest. In July 2008, however, the XEUS project was abandoned in favor of the International X-ray Observatory (IXO), which ESA wanted to develop together with NASA and JAXA as the successor to XMM-Newton and Chandra . Since the imminent realization of IXO on the NASA side was no longer to be expected, in 2011 ESA switched to studying a smaller observatory under its own management under the name ATHENA . After the JUICE probe was selected as the next major ESA mission in 2012 to explore the Jupiter system and especially the moon Ganymede , ATHENA was successful in the following selection in 2014.

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  1. ↑ http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=103
  2. ↑ http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=48661
  3. ↑ http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=103

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