Upcoming High-Energy Astrophysics Missions

These are the missions under develpment with their projected launch date.

• Aspera - A SmallSat for high energy missions selected as part of the Pioneer 2020 program. Aspera will be an extreme ultraviolet astrophysics mission searching for faint diffuse O_VI line emission. (early 2026 launch anticipated, nine month mission planned)
• Athena [ESA, with some NASA contributions] was selected by ESA, within the Cosmic Vision Program, as the next large X-Ray observatory to investigate “The Hot and Energetic Universe” scientific theme. Athena consists of a single large-aperture grazing-incidence X-ray telescope, with 12 m focal length and 5″ HEW on-axis angular resolution, with two interchangeable instruments at the focal plane. One, the Wide Field Imager (WFI), is a wide field imaging and spectroscopy detector with a high count-rate capability, the other, the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU), is a cryogenic X-ray spectrometer delivering spatially resolved high-resolution spectroscopy over a smaller field of view. Athena will be placed into a large amplitude halo orbit around the Earth-Sun L2 point (To be launched in early 2030’s).
• enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry Mission (eXTP) [China/European Institution ]- The enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry mission (eXTP) is designed to study the state of matter under extreme conditions of density, gravity and magnetism. The mission carries four science payload combining imaging and non-imaging instruments. These instruments enable the first simultaneous spectral-timing-polarimetry studies of cosmic sources in the energy range from 0.5–30 keV (To be launched in 2027).
• High Energy Radiation Detection (HERD) [China] - electron and gamma-ray detection (tens of GeV–10 TeV) cosmic ray energy measurement up to PeV. HERD will be placed onboard China’s space station (To be launched in 2027).
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) [ESA/NASA] - will be the first space-based gravitational wave observatory. Selected to be ESA’s third large-class mission (L3), it will address the science theme of the Gravitational Universe. LISA will consist of three spacecraft separated by 2.5 million km in a triangular formation, following Earth in its orbit around the Sun. LISA is a collaboration of ESA and NASA (To be launched in 2034).
• StarBurst - A SmallSat for high energy missions selected as part of the Pioneer 2020 program. StarBurst is designed to observe and characterize short gamma-ray burst sources in the 30 keV – 20 MeV energy range. (2027 launch anticipated, one year mission planned)
• TigerISS - The Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder for the International Space Station (TigerISS) is a NASA Pioneers program to study ultra-heavy Galactic cosmic rays. It will be mounted on the ISS off of the Columbus External Payload Facility. It targets the 0.5–5 GeV/n energy per nucleon range. (Anticipated launch and installlation in 2027; operations tied to duration of ISS thereafter).