ESA scaling back X-ray astronomy mission design - SpaceNews
WASHINGTON — Facing rising costs, the European Space Agency is looking at ways to revise the design of a large X-ray space telescope, an effort that could have implications for NASA’s own astrophysics program. ESA selected the Athena mission in 2014 as one of the two flagship astrophysical missions, along with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Athena — the name comes from the Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics — will launch in the mid-2030s to study supermassive black holes, supernova explosions, and other X-ray sources using large X-ray mirrors. At the time of the election, each mission had an estimated cost to ESA of 1.05 billion euros ($1.07 billion), or about 1.17 billion euros today, said Paul McNamara, ESA’s astronomy and astrophysics coordinator, during a July 21 presentation to NASA astronomers and astrophysicists. committee. However, in 2019, the combined price of Athens and LISA has grown to 2.5 billion euros. As of May 2022, LISA had an estimated