The European Space Agency (ESA), cosine and its partners have been developing for 20 years the Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) technology. SPO enables the next generation of space x-ray telescopes, with increased sensitivity and resolution. NewAthena, the New Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics, has just been endorsed by ESA as one of its Lclass mission, to launch around 2037. NewAthena’s optic is modular and consists of up to 600 mirror modules that form together a ~2.5 m diameter X-ray mirror with a focal length of 12 m and an angular resolution of 9 arc-seconds half-energy width. The total polished mirror surface is ~300 m2, which will focus X-rays with an energy of about 0.3 – 10 keV onto two detectors, a wild-field imager (WFI) and an imaging spectrometer (XIFU). Building hundreds of such SPO mirror modules in a cost-efficient and timely manner is a formidable task and subject of a dedicated ESA technology development program.
We present in this paper the status of the optics production and illustrate not only recent X-ray results but also the progress made on the environmental testing, manufacturing and assembly aspects of SPO based optics.
The ground calibration of the NewATHENA mirror poses significant challenges owing to its unprecedented size, mass, and focal length. VERT-X is an innovative calibration facility designed to tackle this exceptionally demanding task. It relies on an X-ray parallel beam, generated by a micro-focus source positioned at the focus of an X-ray collimator. A raster-scan mechanism enables the beam movement, covering all NewATHENA optics at varying off-axis angles. The compactness of the concept offers several benefits, including the vertical geometry which implies minimal PSF degradation due to lateral gravity. Furthermore, this allows for a flexible choice of location. Indeed one of the most important feature of VERT-X is its contiguity with the mirror integration facility. The driving factor in the VERT-X design is to meet the NewATHENA calibration requirement for Half- Energy Width (HEW) accuracy at 0.1”. Key contributors to the error budget in the VERT-X design include the source size, collimator error, and raster-scan pointing accuracy. This paper provides an overview of the current status of the development of these critical parts.
With the endorsement of the NewAthena (New Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics) mission by ESA’s Science Programme Committee in November 2023, the preparations for this next generation X-ray observatory have shifted to a higher gear. Competitive system studies and technology preparation activities are being implemented, aiming to demonstrate readiness for the mission adoption early 2027 and the subsequent mission implementation.
The Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) enables the NewAthena mission, delivering an unprecedented combination of good angular resolution, large effective area and low mass. The SPO technology builds significantly on spin-in from the semiconductor industry and is designed to allow a cost-effective flight optics implementation, compliant with the programmatic requirements of the mission.
The NewAthena X-ray optics is highly modular, consisting of hundreds of compact mirror modules arranged in concentric circles and mounted on a metallic optical bench. All aspects of the optics are being developed in parallel, from the industrial production of the mirror plates, over the highly efficient assembly into mirror modules, to the alignment of the mirror modules and their fixation on the optical bench. Dedicated facilities are being built to measure the performance of the NewAthena X-ray telescope optics, demonstrating their compatibility with the environmental and scientific requirements.
An overview is provided of the activities preparing the implementation of the NewATHENA optics.
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