Simbol-x: A New Technology Hard X-ray Focusing Telescope

Simbol-X is a hard X-ray telescope (0.5 80 keV) that takes advantage of the emerging formation flight technology to achieve good quality focusing optics in the hard-X-ray domain. Simbol-X will provide approximately three orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity compared to present non-focusing optics such as coded masks and collimated instruments. This is accomplished by extending the grazing incidence X-ray mirror technology to very long focal length (20-25 m) mounting the optics and the focal plane instrumentation on two different spacecraft. Simbol-X will open entirely new perspectives in hard X-ray astronomy by addressing outstanding questions in the field of cosmic X-ray background, black hole physics, particle acceleration and in other areas of high energy astrophysics. The symbol-X mission has been selected for phase A study by the French and Italian space agencies (CNES and ASI) with a target launch in early 2013.