Overview of Athena and the Wide Field Imager

The Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics will be ESA’s next large X-ray observatory. While the launch date (2028) seems far, the community has already now been very active in assembling the scientific goals for the Athena and thus the requirements on the mission and its instrumentation. In the talk, I will summarize the Athena science theme (The Hot and Energetic Universe), present its broad science portfolio, reaching from the formation of supermassive black holes in the early Universe, over the assembly of the large scale structure to observations to Galactic and even Solar system objects. I will also describe the mission profile and the challenges faced during the development of the optics and two scientific instruments.