Support for the Athena community statement

At its meeting on the 8th and 9th of June 2022, the Science Program Committee of the European Space Agency (ESA) is asked to evaluate a proposal from the ESA Executives for the Large-class missions, which may lead to a rescoping and delay of the Athena observatory.

The Athena Science Study Team (ASST) asks for the support of the astronomical community for the following statement regarding the continuity of a powerful Athena observatory, able to address a broad range of astronomical topics at the core of the scientific interests of a large and diverse astronomical community:

As a member of the Athena science community or the astronomical community at large, we are sincerely concerned with the risk that a revision of the ESA Science Programme may endanger Athena, the mission selected to implement the “Hot and Energetic Universe” science theme, which defines the path for X-ray astronomy in the decades to come. Athena will transform our understanding of the high-energy Universe, and provide the worldwide astronomical community with a powerful observatory able to address a wide range of scientific goals. Maintaining Athena in the Science Programme will preserve its scientific excellence and diversity.

Therefore we call on ESA and the Member States to ensure that:

- the ESA Science Programme retains Athena as a flagship European X-ray mission tackling the Hot and Energetic Universe theme while providing a powerful general purpose X-ray observatory for the whole community;

- any delays to the Athena schedule are minimised, to optimally utilise the technological and scientific maturity accumulated by the Athena Study so far, and to ensure the long-term sustainability of the global X-ray community, in particular in the ESA Member States;

- any rescoping of the Athena mission profile within the available resource envelope in the Science Programme is undertaken in full consultation with the community represented by the ASST, the Athena Instrument Consortia, and the Athena international community working groups, recognising the decade-long material and intellectual investments already made in the mission.

This statement was first released on 3 June at 11:59 CEST and, as of 13 June 2022 at 11:55 CEST it has collected more than 2300 signatures from all over the world (51 countries) and across the electromagnetic spectrum and beyond. You can see the statement and the signatures as of 13 June 2022 at 11:55 CEST here. We warmly thank the international scientific community for the overwhelming response, which surely contributed to stopping the decision to prematurely terminate the mission!