title: The X-ray Integral Field Unit at the end of the Athena reformulation phase
Creators: name: Peille, Philippe
name: Barret, Didier
name: Cucchetti, Edoardo
name: Albouys, Vincent
name: Piro, Luigi
name: Simionescu, Aurora
name: Cappi, Massimo
name: Bellouard, Elise
name: Cénac-Morthé, Céline
name: Daniel, Christophe
name: Pradines, Alice
name: Finoguenov, Alexis
name: Kelley, Richard
name: Mas-Hesse, J. Miguel
name: Paltani, Stéphane
name: Rauw, Gregor
name: Rozanska, Agata
name: Svoboda, Jiri
name: Wilms, Joern
name: Audard, Marc
name: Bozzo, Enrico
name: Costantini, Elisa
name: Dadina, Mauro
name: Dauser, Thomas
name: Decourchelle, Anne
name: Den Herder, Jan-Willem
name: Goldwurm, Andrea
name: Jonker, Peter
name: Markowitz, Alex
name: Mendez, Mariano
name: Miniutti, Giovanni
name: Molendi, Silvano
name: Nicastro, Fabrizio
name: Pajot, François
name: Pointecouteau, Etienne
name: Pratt, Gabriel W.
name: Schaye, Joop
name: Vink, Jacco
name: Webb, Natalie
name: Bandler, Simon
name: Barbera, Marco
name: Ceballos, Maria Teresa
name: Charles, Ivan
name: Den Hartog, Roland
name: Doriese, W. Bertrand
name: Duval, Jean-Marc
name: Gatti, Flavio
name: Jackson, Brian
name: Kilbourne, Caroline
name: Macculi, Claudio
name: Martin, Sylvain
name: Parot, Yann
name: Porter, Frederick
name: Prêle, Damien
name: Ravera, Laurent
name: Smith, Stephen
name: Soucek, Jan
name: Thibert, Tanguy
name: Tuominen, Eija
name: Acero, Fabio
name: Ettori, Stefano
name: Grosso, Nicolas
name: Kaastra, Jelle
name: Mazzotta, Pasquale
name: Miller, Jon
name: Sciortino, Salvatore
name: Beaumont, Sophie
name: D’Andrea, Matteo
name: De Plaa, Jelle
name: Eckart, Megan
name: Gottardi, Luciano
name: Leutenegger, Maurice
name: Lotti, Simone
name: Molin, Alexei
name: Natalucci, Lorenzo
name: Adil, Muhammad Qazi
name: Argan, Andrea
name: Cavazzuti, Elisabetta
name: Fiorini, Mauro
name: Khosropanah, Pourya
name: Medinaceli Villegas, Eduardo
name: Minervini, Gabriele
name: Perry, James
name: Pinsard, Frederic
name: Raulin, Desi
name: Rigano, Manuela
name: Roelfsema, Peter
name: Schwander, Denis
name: Terron, Santiago
name: Torrioli, Guido
name: Ullom, Joel
name: Zuchniak, Monika
name: Chaoul, Laurence
name: Torrejon, Jose Miguel
name: Brachet, Frank
name: Cobo, Beatriz
name: Durkin, Malcolm
name: Fioretti, Valentina
name: Geoffray, Hervé
name: Jacques, Lionel
name: Kirsch, Christian
name: Lo Cicero, Ugo
name: Adams, Joseph
name: Gloaguen, Emilie
name: Gonzalez, Manuel
name: Hull, Samuel
name: Jellyman, Erik
name: Kiviranta, Mikko
name: Sakai, Kazuhiro
name: Taralli, Emanuele
name: Vaccaro, Davide
name: Van Der Hulst, Paul
name: Van Der Kuur, Jan
name: Van Leeuwen, Bert-Joost
name: Van Loon, Dennis
name: Wakeham, Nicholas
name: Auricchio, Natalia
name: Brienza, Daniele
name: Cheatom, Oscar
name: Franssen, Philippe
name: Julien, Sabine
name: Le Mer, Isabelle
name: Moirin, David
name: Silva, Vitor
name: Todaro, Michela
name: Clerc, Nicolas
name: Coleiro, Alexis
name: Ptak, Andy
name: Puccetti, Simonetta
name: Surace, Christian
name: Abdoelkariem, Shariefa
name: Adami, Christophe
name: Aicardi, Corinne
name: André, Jérôme
name: Angelinelli, Matteo
name: Anvar, Shebli
name: Arnaldi, Luis Horacio
name: Attard, Anthony
name: Audley, Damian
name: Bancel, Florian
name: Banks, Kimberly
name: Bernard, Vivian
name: Bij De Vaate, Jan Geralt
name: Bonino, Donata
name: Bonnamy, Anthony
name: Bonny, Patrick
name: Boreux, Charles
name: Bounab, Ayoub
name: Brigitte, Maïmouna
name: Bruijn, Marcel
name: Brysbaert, Clément
name: Bulgarelli, Andrea
name: Calarco, Simona
name: Camus, Thierry
name: Canourgues, Florent
name: Capobianco, Vito
name: Cardiel, Nicolas
name: Celasco, Edvige
name: Chen, Si
name: Chervenak, James
name: Chiarello, Fabio
name: Clamagirand, Sébastien
name: Coeur-Joly, Odile
name: Corcione, Leonardo
name: Coriat, Mickael
name: Coulet, Anais
name: Courty, Bernard
name: Coynel, Alexandre
name: D’Ai, Antonino
name: Dambrauskas, Eugenio
name: D’anca, Fabio
name: Dauner, Lea
name: De Gerone, Matteo
name: DeNigris, Natalie
name: Dercksen, Johannes
name: De Wit, Martin
name: Dieleman, Pieter
name: DiPirro, Michael
name: Doumayrou, Eric
name: Duband, Lionel
name: Dubbeldam, Luc
name: Dupieux, Michel
name: Dupourqué, Simon
name: Durand, Jean Louis
name: Eckert, Dominique
name: Ferrando, Philippe
name: Ferrari Barusso, Lorenzo
name: Finkbeiner, Fred
name: Fiocchi, Mariateresa
name: Fossecave, Hervé
name: Gabici, Stefano
name: Gallucci, Giovanni
name: Gant, Florent
name: Gao, Jian-Rong
name: Gastaldello, Fabio
name: Genolet, Ludovic
name: Ghizzardi, Simona
name: Giovannini, Elisa
name: Giustini, Margherita
name: Givaudan, Alain
name: Godet, Olivier
name: Gomez, Alicia
name: Gonzalez, Raoul
name: Gozaliasl, Ghassem
name: Grandsire, Laurent
name: Granena, David
name: Gros, Michel
name: Guerin, Corentin
name: Guilhem, Emmanuel
name: Guizzo, Gian Paolo
name: Gu, Liyi
name: Irwin, Kent
name: Jacquey, Christian
name: Janiuk, Agnieszka
name: Jaubert, Jean
name: Jolly, Antoine
name: Jourdan, Thierry
name: Knödlseder, Jürgen
name: König, Ole
name: Korb, Andrew
name: Kreykenbohm, Ingo
name: Lafforgue, David
name: Lan, Radek
name: Larrieu, Maélyss
name: Laudet, Philippe
name: Laurent, Philippe
name: Laurent, Sylvain
name: Laurenza, Monica
name: Le Cam, Maël
name: Lesrel, Jean
name: Ligori, Sebastiano
name: Lorenz, Maximilian
name: Luminari, Alfredo
name: Madsen, Kristin
name: Maisonnave, Océane
name: Marelli, Lorenzo
name: Marty, Wilfried
name: Massida, Zoé
name: Massonet, Didier
name: Maussang, Irwin
name: Merino Alonso, Pablo Eleazar
name: Mesquida, Jean
name: Mineo, Teresa
name: Montinaro, Nicola
name: Murat, David
name: Nagayoshi, Kenichiro
name: Nazé, Yaël
name: Noguès, Loïc
name: Nouals, François
name: Ortega, Cristina
name: Panessa, Francesca
name: Parodi, Luigi
name: Piconcelli, Enrico
name: Pinto, Ciro
name: Porquet, Delphine
name: Prouvé, Thomas
name: Punch, Michael
name: Rioland, Guillaume
name: Riollet, Marc-Olivier
name: Rodriguez, Louis
name: Roig, Anton
name: Roncarelli, Mauro
name: Roucayrol, Lionel
name: Roudil, Gilles
name: Ruiz De Ocenda, Lander
name: Sciortino, Luisa
name: Simonella, Olivier
name: Sordet, Michael
name: Taubenschuss, Ulrich
name: Terrasa, Guilhem
name: Terrier, Régis
name: Ubertini, Pietro
name: Uhlir, Ludek
name: Uslenghi, Michela
name: Van Weers, Henk
name: Varisco, Salvatore
name: Varniere, Peggy
name: Volpe, Angela
name: Walmsley, Gavin
name: Wise, Michael
name: Wolnievik, Andreas
name: Wo?Niak, Grzegorz
Publisher: name: Springer
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: X-ray integral field unit
subject: X-rays
subject: Instrumentation
subject: Micro-calorimeters
subject: Athena

description: The Athena mission entered a redefinition phase in July 2022, driven by the imperative to reduce the mission cost at completion for the European Space Agency below an acceptable target, while maintaining the flagship nature of its science return. This notably called for a complete redesign of the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) cryogenic architecture towards a simpler active cooling chain. Passive cooling via successive radiative panels at spacecraft level is now used to provide a 50 K thermal environment to an X-IFU owned cryostat. 4.5 K cooling is achieved via a single remote active cryocooler unit, while a multi-stage Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator ensures heat lift down to the 50 mK required by the detectors. Amidst these changes, the core concept of the readout chain remains robust, employing Transition Edge Sensor microcalorimeters and a SQUID-based Time-Division Multiplexing scheme. Noteworthy is the introduction of a slower pixel. This enables an increase in the multiplexing factor (from 34 to 48) without compromising the instrument energy resolution, hence keeping significant system margins to the new 4 eV resolution requirement. This allows reducing the number of channels by more than a factor two, and thus the resource demands on the system, while keeping a 4’ field of view (compared to 5’ before). In this article, we will give an overview of this new architecture, before detailing its anticipated performances. Finally, we will present the new X-IFU schedule, with its short term focus on demonstration activities towards a mission adoption in early 2027