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2) Retour sur la situation de la mission Athena
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Dear members of the Athena community,
With this message, the Athena Science Study Team (ASST) would like to provide some initial information on the outcome of the ESA Science Program Committee (SPC) Workshop held on June 9. As mentioned in our previous message, the fate of Athena was at the core of the Workshop agenda. The SPC discussed a proposal by ESA aiming at addressing a financial shortfall of the Science Programme, which foresaw the “suspension” of the Athena Study.
We are glad to report that Athena is still on the landscape of the ESA Science Programme. Your overwhelming response to our public call for support contributed to this result: thank you very much!
More specifically, the SPC agreed that:
Athena will not be adopted in June 2023 at the latest cost estimates to ESA (1.9 G€);
Athena will undergo a “design-to-cost” activity, aiming at a significant reduction of its costs to ESA to ensure that the total cost of both the Large-class missions (Athena and LISA) remains under a 2.6B€ cap, with no predefined split of the budget assigned to each mission;
The process to undertake the Athena design-to-cost will be defined in an ESA “action plan” paper to be published in about 2 weeks. The process should preserve the mission high-resolution spectroscopy capabilities;
In early 2023, the SPC shall decide on which of the L-class missions will be the first to be adopted, depending on their technical and programmatic (i.e., cost) maturity.
While pushing for science-neutral saving options, the ASST would like to make the community aware that the design-to-cost exercise is likely to have an impact on the ultimate science performance of Athena.
The ASST endeavours to maintain you continuously informed on the future evolution of the Athena Study. Do not hesitate to contact ASST members for any questions you may have.
We warmly thank you for your continuous support to the ASST, and to Athena!
Matteo Guainazzi, on behalf of the ASST and Francisco J. Carrera on behalf of the ACO.
-> transmis par Pierre-Olivier Petrucci