The Simbol-X mission

Simbol-X is a hard X-ray mission, operating in the ˜ 0.5-80 keV range, proposed as a collaboration between the French and Italian space agencies with participation of German laboratories for a launch in 2013. Relying on two spacecrafts in a formation flying configuration, Simbol-X uses for the first time a 20 m focal length X-ray mirror to focus X-rays with energy above 10 keV, resulting in over two orders of magnitude improvement in angular resolution and sensitivity in the hard X-ray range with respect to non-focusing techniques. The Simbol-X revolutionary instrumental capabilities will allow to elucidate outstanding questions in high energy astrophysics such as those related to black-holes accretion physics and census, and to particle acceleration mechanisms. Simbol-X has been selected for a phase A study which is jointly conducted by CNES and ASI. We give in this paper a general overview of the mission, as consolidated close to the end of the phase A.