Latest news
19-10-2017 - Release of the October 2017 issue of the X-IFU Gazette
Thanks to Françoise Douchin, on behalf of the editorial team, I am pleased to announce the release of the October 2017 issue of the X-IFU Gazette. The slight delay is due to the fact that we wanted to include a note by Luigi Piro on the detection of the X-ray counterpart of the neutron star merger that shacked the world on Monday. Thanks Luigi and congratulation for this very important discovery. Looking forward to detect those routinely with the X-IFU.
Thanks to all the contributors to this new Gazette.
Enjoy the reading. Don’t hesitate to provide feedback to Françoise (Francoise.Douchin@cnes.fr) on the content of the X-IFU Gazette.
Best regards,
Françoise and Didier
16-09-2017 - X-IFU week in Madrid is over
The sixth X-IFU consortium meeting took place from September 11th to 15th in Madrid at CSIC headquarters. It was hosted by Miguel Mas Hesse (CAB-INTA) and his team, during a very sunny, hot and beautiful week in Madrid. More than 120 X-IFU team members participated in the 18 splinters and the 1.5 days of the plenary sessions. The splinter meetings covered several technical items (sub-systems of the instrument, e.g. the instrument control unit, the TES and readout chain, the power distribution unit, the dewar door), performance items (e.g. system, instrumental background, end-to-end simulator), science and calibration activities, as well as management.
The plenary sessions started from a report on the Cost Driven Reprogramming Exercise, followed by a presentation by ESA on the status of the Athena project. Then, a series of CNES presentations gave a broad view of the study status at instrument and system levels, detailing the current baseline design of the instrument which is in several aspects reaching a high level of maturity. Each sub-system manager then presented a status on the study activities, demonstrating again the breadth of the activities throughout the consortium. The second day of the plenary sessions started by a presentation by Luigi Piro (IAPS) on the transient Universe as will be probed by Athena, a presentation by Matteo Guainazzi (ESA study scientist) on the science requirements, and a status report on WFI by Arne Rau (MPE). Several presentations related to the instrument performance followed. Overall, the quality and depth of the different presentations demonstrated not only the skills of the team, but also its motivation and dedication to meeting the very ambitious and demanding performance of the instrument. The X-IFU Consortium meeting #7 will be in Paris (ApC) in March 2018 and will also be spread over a week. The Consortium meeting picture is shown below. Didier Barret, X-IFU PI.
07-09-2017 - X-IFU presentation at the Power of X-ray spectroscopy conference
Overview presentation of the X-IFU at the Power of X-ray Spectroscopy conference in Warsaw (September 6-8th, 2017) can be found here.
13-07-2017 - Release of the July 2017 issue of the X-IFU Gazette
Thanks to Françoise Douchin, on behalf of the editorial team, I am pleased to announce the release of the N°4 July 15th 2017 issue of the X-IFU Gazette.
Enjoy the reading. Don't hesitate to provide feedback to Françoise (Francoise.Douchin@cnes.fr) on the content of the X-IFU Gazette.
Best regards,
Françoise and Didier
10-06-2017 - X-IFU status presentation at X-ray Universe Conference – Roma
Overview status presentation at the 2017 X-ray Universe conference in Roma by Didier Barret (see slides).
20-05-2017 - Integrated progress meeting at CNES
The next IPM (#2) will take place at CNES Toulouse on June 14-15th, 2017. It will review the progresses made on all sub-systems.
15-04-2017 - Release of the April 2017 issue of the X-IFU Gazette
Thanks to Françoise Douchin, on behalf of the editorial team, I am pleased to announce the release of the N°3 15 Avril 2017 final (April 2017).
Enjoy the reading. Don't hesitate to provide feedback to Françoise (Francoise.Douchin@cnes.fr) on the content of the X-IFU Gazette.
Best regards,
Françoise and Didier
17-03-2017 - Agenda of X-IFU Consortium meeting #5
Agenda of the X-IFU Consortium meeting #5 is here.
17-03-2017 - Agenda of X-IFU Consortium meeting #5
Agenda of the X-IFU Consortium meeting #5 is here.
