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The joint JAXA/NASA Astro‐H mission is the sixth in a series of X‐ray missions initiated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). The planned launch date is 2014. Astro‐H will investigate the physics of the high‐energy universe by performing high‐resolution, high‐throughput spectroscopy with moderate spatial resolution over the 0.3–600 keV energy range. ASTRO‐H is a combination of wide band X‐ray spectroscopy (3–80 keV) provided by focusing hard X‐ray mirrors and hard X‐ray imaging detectors, and high energy‐resolution soft X‐ray spectroscopy (0.3–10 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 and a non‐focusing soft gamma‐ray detector. The simultaneous broad bandpass, coupled with high spectral resolution of ΔE∼7 eV by the micro‐calorimeter will …