The Constellation X-ray mission: Implementation concept and science overview

The Constellation-X mission is a large collecting area X-ray facility, emphasizing observations at high spectral resolution (E/Delta E similar to 300-3000) while covering a broad energy band(0.25-40 keV). By increasing the telescope aperture and utilizing efficient spectrometers the mission will achieve a factor of 100 increased sensitivity over current high resolution ii-ray spectroscopy missions. The use of focussing optics across the 10-40 keV band will provide a similar factor of 100 increased sensitivity in this band. Key technologies under development for the mission include lightweight high throughput ii-ray optics, multilayer coatings to enhance the hard ii-ray performance of ii-ray optics, micro-calorimeter spectrometer arrays with 2 eV resolution,low power and low weight CCD arrays, lightweight gratings and hard ii-ray detectors. When observations commence towards the end of the next decade, Constellation-X will address many pressing questions concerning the extremes of gravity and the evolution of the Universe.