Consortium

Last week we had the 20th X-IFU Consortium meeting at IRAP in an hybrid format. A very successful gathering, in […]

From July 2023 to November 2023, the Athena mission and its instruments underwent a reformulation phase. This led to a modification of certain X-IFU performances, detailed in the new scientific reference publication on the instrument. The publication has just been published in Experimental Astronomy.

Massimo Cappi, Chair of the X-IFU Science Advisory Team (XSAT) and astrophysicist at INAF-OAS Bologna, looks back on his career and explains his role in the project.

A key design point on the 4K Core Demonstration Model was held on April 30 at CNES. The main objective was to present the demonstrator’s preliminary design, development plan and test plan, and to check the demonstrator’s compatibility with the recently delivered test cryostat.

Aurora Simionescu is co-Principal Investigator for the NewAthena X-IFU project & Research Scientist at SRON, Netherlands Institute for Space Research. In this interview, she looks back on her career and her new role as Co-PI.

Congratulations to Thomas Dauser, who receives the 2024 HEAD Innovation Prize from the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

Simon Bandler is Project manager for the U.S. contribution to the X-IFU & Research Astrophysicist at NASA. He shares with us his background in low-temperature physics detection and explains his role in the project.

A new cryogenic workshop, the first gathering of all the main parties in the newly reformulated X-IFU cooling chain, took place January 31st through February 2nd in Toulouse, at CNES.

Sophie Beaumont is a detection chain engineer in the optoelectronics department at CNES. In this interview, she explains her motivations and different roles and tasks within the project.

From November 20 to 22, 178 men and women gathered online for the 17th meeting of the X-IFU consortium.

Our colleague Graziella Branduardi-Raymont – Member of the Athena/X-IFU Science Advisory Team – passed away unexpectedly last week.

2022 was a rather intense year for X-IFU with the unanticipated effects of the cost overrun of the Athena mission. […]