The 11th semi-annual meeting of the WFI Consortium was held from April 27th to April 30th. Owing to the challenging impact of COVID-19 all over the world, the meeting was not, as initially planned, hosted at MPE, but for the first time moved entirely into virtual space.

Even though it was held in a different format, the meeting once again offered the opportunity to share and discuss the status and the latest news on the instrument, its science and all of its subsystems.

The virtual format enabled the attendance of the largest number of participants at a WFI Consortium Meeting so far, with more than 110 at the peak, representing all 23 WFI Consortium Partner Institutes, ESA, the German Space Agency DLR, Japan, and the X-IFU Consortium.

Progress has been made in all of the critical development aspects of the WFI. While the impact of the work and travel restrictions in all partner countries could be felt, the instrument development continues to steadily move forward towards the next important milestone, the System Requirements Review.

The plenary session also included presentations by M. Ayre (ESA), A. Stefanescu (ESA), the X-IFU PI D. Barret as well as a summary of the Athena optics development (by M. Bavdaz, ESA).

The next consortium meeting will be held in autumn 2020.