  The joint JAXA/NASA ASTRO-H mission is the sixth in a series of highly
successful X-ray missions initiated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical
Science (ISAS). ASTRO-H will investigate the physics of the high-energy
universe by performing high-resolution, high-throughput spectroscopy with
moderate angular resolution. ASTRO-H covers very wide energy range from 0.3 keV
to 600 keV. ASTRO-H allows a combination of wide band X-ray spectroscopy (5-80
keV) provided by multilayer coating, focusing hard X-ray mirrors and hard X-ray
imaging detectors, and high energy-resolution soft X-ray spectroscopy (0.3-12
keV) provided by thin-foil X-ray optics and a micro-calorimeter array. The
mission will also carry an X-ray CCD camera as a focal plane detector for a
soft X-ray telescope (0.4-12 keV) and a non-focusing soft gamma-ray detector
(40-600 keV) . The micro-calorimeter system is developed by an international
collaboration led by ISAS/JAXA and NASA. The simultaneous broad bandpass,
coupled with high spectral resolution of Delta E ~7 eV provided by the
micro-calorimeter will enable a wide variety of important science themes to be
pursued.
