Athena Mission Proposal
K. Nandra, X. Barcons, D. Barret, A. Fabian, J.W. den Herder, L. Piro, M. Watson et al.
The mission proposal (as submitted to ESA) provides a detailed analysis of the underlying scientific questions of the hot and Energetic Universe, the mission profile, a description of the Athena payload and the spacecraft configuration, the science operations concept, the required technology developments at the spacecraft level and a discussion of the programmatic issues and costs.