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The XEUS Mission

XEUS, the X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy mission, is at present an ESA-ISAS initiative for the study of the evolution of the hot Universe in the post-Chandra/XMM-Newton era. The key science objectives of XEUS are: Search for the origin, and subsequent study of growth, of the first massive black holes in the early Universe; assessment of the formation of the first gravitationally bound dark matter dominated systems and their evolution; study of the evolution of metal synthesis up till the present epoch; characterization of the true intergalactic medium. To reach these ambitious science goals the two salient characteristics of the XEUS observatory entail: (1) Its effective spectroscopic grasp, combining a sensitive area > 20 m^2 below 2 keV with a spectral resolution better than 2 eV. This allows significant detection of the most prominent X-ray emission lines (e.g. O-VII, Si-XIII and Fe-XXV) in cosmologically distant sources against the sky background; (2) Its angular resolving power, between 2 and 5 arc seconds, to minimize source confusion as well as noise due to the galactic X-ray foreground emission. To accommodate these instrument requirements a mission concept has been developed featuring an X-ray telescope of 50-m focal length, comprising two laser-locked (separate) mirror and detector spacecraft's. The telescope is injected in a low earth orbit with an inclination commensurate with the ISS. At present an on-orbit growth of the mirror spacecraft is foreseen with the aid of the ISS, raising the mirror diameter from 4.5 to 10 m. The detector spacecraft will be replaced at 5 year intervals after run-out of consumables with an associated upgrade of the focal plane package.