The Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS), a concept recently submitted to NASA’s Astrophysics Probe Explorer competition, will offer low-background, arcsecond-resolution imaging in the 0.3–10 keV band across a 450-arcmin2 field of view, with an effective area at 1 keV of at least 4200 cm2. AXIS will bring X-ray astronomy back to the forefront of modern mainstream astrophysics, reaching equivalent depths in X-rays to many of the major facilities of the 2030’s (e.g., JWST, Roman, Rubin, ngVLA, LISA) to address the most important questions identified by the Astro2020 Decadal Survey. Here, we present an update on the status of AXIS.
The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) project at JAXA officially started in 2018. Following the development of onboard components, the proto-flight test was conducted from 2021 to 2023 at JAXA Tsukuba Space Center. The spacecraft was launched from JAXA Tanegashima Space Center on September 7, 2023 (JST), and onboard components, including the science instruments, were activated during the in-orbit commissioning phase. Following the previous report in 2020, we report the spacecraft ground tests, the launch operation, in-orbit operations, and the status and plan of initial and subsequent guest observations.
The Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS) is a Probe-class concept that will build on the legacy of the Chandra x-ray Observatory by providing low-background, arcsecond-resolution in the 0.3-10 keV band across a 450 arcminute2 field of view, with an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity. AXIS utilizes breakthroughs in the construction of lightweight segmented x-ray optics using single-crystal silicon, and developments in the fabrication of large-format, small-pixel, high readout rate CCD detectors with good spectral resolution, allowing a robust and cost-effective design. Further, AXIS will be responsive to target-of-opportunity alerts and, with onboard transient detection, will be a powerful facility for studying the time-varying x-ray universe, following on from the legacy of the Neil Gehrels (Swift) x-ray observatory that revolutionized studies of the transient x-ray Universe. In this paper, we present an overview of AXIS, highlighting the prime science objectives driving the AXIS concept and how the observatory design will achieve these objectives.
In this multi-messenger astronomy era, all the observational probes are improving their sensitivities and overall performance. The Focusing on Relativistic universe and Cosmic Evolution (FORCE) mission, the product of a JAXA/NASA collaboration, will reach a 10 times higher sensitivity in the hard X-ray band (E > 10 keV) in comparison with any previous hard x-ray missions, and provide simultaneous soft x-ray coverage. FORCE aims to be launched in the early 2030s, providing a perfect hard x-ray complement to the ESA flagship mission Athena. FORCE will be the most powerful x-ray probe for discovering obscured/hidden black holes and studying high energy particle acceleration in our Universe and will address how relativistic processes in the universe are realized and how these affect cosmic evolution. FORCE, which will operate over 1–79 keV, is equipped with two identical pairs of supermirrors and wideband x-ray imagers. The mirror and imager are connected by a high mechanical stiffness extensible optical bench with alignment monitor systems with a focal length of 12 m. A light-weight silicon mirror with multi-layer coating realizes a high angular resolution of < 15′′ in half-power diameter in the broad bandpass. The imager is a hybrid of a brand-new SOI-CMOS silicon-pixel detector and a CdTe detector responsible for the softer and harder energy bands, respectively. FORCE will play an essential role in the multi-messenger astronomy in the 2030s with its broadband x-ray sensitivity.
The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) is the successor to the 2016 Hitomi mission that ended prematurely. Like Hitomi, the primary science goals are to examine astrophysical problems with precise highresolution X-ray spectroscopy. XRISM promises to discover new horizons in X-ray astronomy. XRISM carries a 6 x 6 pixelized X-ray micro-calorimeter on the focal plane of an X-ray mirror assembly and a co-aligned X-ray CCD camera that covers the same energy band over a large field of view. XRISM utilizes Hitomi heritage, but all designs were reviewed. The attitude and orbit control system were improved in hardware and software. The number of star sensors were increased from two to three to improve coverage and robustness in onboard attitude determination and to obtain a wider field of view sun sensor. The fault detection, isolation, and reconfiguration (FDIR) system was carefully examined and reconfigured. Together with a planned increase of ground support stations, the survivability of the spacecraft is significantly improved.
FORCE (Focusing On Relativistic universe and Cosmic Evolution) is a future Japan-lead X-ray mission in study to achieve wide-band (1-80 keV) coverage with good (15’’ half-power-diameter, HPD) angular resolution, to uncover high energy phenomena currently difficult to access because of strong absorption and/or overlaid thermal emission. The science instrument onboard FORCE is a pair of high-resolution super-mirrors, and wide-band imaging spectrometers, placed with a focal length distance of 12 m. WHXI is designed to achieve high sensitivity, and therefore low background level of 1-3 x 10-3 counts s-1 cm-2. Low and stable background is important especially for diffuse source analysis, and it also contributes to achieve good sensitivity against dim point sources. With this aim, the basic concept of FORCE/WHXI is based on Hitomi/HXI heritage, which has achieved the lowest ever background in 5 to ~30 keV band in orbit. The imager is made of a hybrid X-ray imager and active shield surrounding it. The former consists of a newly developed Si imager (XRPIX) to cover 1-25 keV, and a CdTe imager (CdTe-DSD, a heritage of Hitomi/HXI), to cover 20-80 keV, stacked in tandem. The active shield is made of 3-4 cm thick BGO scintillator crystal covering almost 4-pi radian around the imagers. Lessons learned from both NuSTAR FPMA and Hitomi/HXI will be incorporated in WHXI.
The XRISM X-ray observatory will fly two advanced instruments, the Resolve high-resolution spectrometer and the Xtend wide-field imager. These instruments, particularly Resolve, pose calibration challenges due to the unprecedented combination of spectral resolution, spectral coverage, and effective area, combined with a need to characterize the imaging fidelity of the full instrument system to realize the mission’s ambitious science goals. We present the status of the XRISM in-flight calibration plan, building on lessons from Hitomi and other X-ray missions. We present a discussion of targets and observing strategies to address the needed calibration measurements, with a focus on developing methodologies to plan a thorough and flexible calibration campaign and provide insight on calibration systematic error. We also discuss observations that exploit Resolve’s spectral
We present the concept of a future Japan-lead X-ray mission, FORCE (Focusing On Relativistic universe and Cosmic Evolution). FORCE is characterized by broadband (1-80 keV) X-ray imaging spectroscopy with high angular resolution (<15"). The sensitivity above 10 keV will be 10 times higher than that of any previous hard X-ray missions. FORCE will trace the cosmic evolution by searching for ``missing black holes'' in the entire range of their mass spectrum and investigate the nature of relativistic particles at various astrophysical shocks by observing their non-thermal X-ray emission.
The ASTRO-H mission was designed and developed through an international collaboration of JAXA, NASA, ESA, and the CSA. It was successfully launched on February 17, 2016, and then named Hitomi. During the in-orbit verification phase, the on-board observational instruments functioned as expected. The intricate coolant and refrigeration systems for soft X-ray spectrometer (SXS, a quantum micro-calorimeter) and soft X-ray imager (SXI, an X-ray CCD) also functioned as expected. However, on March 26, 2016, operations were prematurely terminated by a series of abnormal events and mishaps triggered by the attitude control system. These errors led to a fatal event: the loss of the solar panels on the Hitomi mission. The X-ray Astronomy Recovery Mission (or, XARM) is proposed to regain the key scientific advances anticipated by the international collaboration behind Hitomi. XARM will recover this science in the shortest time possible by focusing on one of the main science goals of Hitomi,“Resolving astrophysical problems by precise high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy”.1 This decision was reached after evaluating the performance of the instruments aboard Hitomi and the mission’s initial scientific results, and considering the landscape of planned international X-ray astrophysics missions in 2020’s and 2030’s. Hitomi opened the door to high-resolution spectroscopy in the X-ray universe. It revealed a number of discrepancies between new observational results and prior theoretical predictions. Yet, the resolution pioneered by Hitomi is also the key to answering these and other fundamental questions. The high spectral resolution realized by XARM will not offer mere refinements; rather, it will enable qualitative leaps in astrophysics and plasma physics. XARM has therefore been given a broad scientific charge: “Revealing material circulation and energy transfer in cosmic plasmas and elucidating evolution of cosmic structures and objects”. To fulfill this charge, four categories of science objectives that were defined for Hitomi will also be pursued by XARM; these include (1) Structure formation of the Universe and evolution of clusters of galaxies; (2) Circulation history of baryonic matters in the Universe; (3) Transport and circulation of energy in the Universe; (4) New science with unprecedented high resolution X-ray spectroscopy. In order to achieve these scientific objectives, XARM will carry a 6 × 6 pixelized X-ray micro-calorimeter on the focal plane of an X-ray mirror assembly, and an aligned X-ray CCD camera covering the same energy band and a wider field of view. This paper introduces the science objectives, mission concept, and observing plan of XARM.
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