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After more than four years of existence as a proto-consortium, on December 11th, 2018, following the successful completion of the instrument consortia confirmation process started in July, ESA formally appointed the X-IFU Consortium to provide the X-IFU for the Athena space X-ray Observatory: the second large mission of the ESA Cosmic Vision science program. This is a major achievement from the whole X-IFU team, made possible through a clear support from the 11 ESA member states involved in the instrument development. This is also a major step towards the adoption of the mission in late 2021.
The X-IFU consortium is now gearing all its efforts towards the preparation of the Instrument Preliminary Requirement Review to be held early next year.
Didier Barret
X-IFU Principal Investigator
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