MINERVA, a new x-ray facility at the ALBA Synchrotron devoted to assemble and characterize the Silicon Pore Optics Mirror Modules for the NewATHENA mission

The ALBA Synchrotron (Barcelona, Spain) has built MINERVA a new X-ray facility designed to support the development of the NewATHENA mission (Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics), whose objective is to observe and study energetic objects in space (accretion disk around black holes, large-scale structure, etc...). MINERVA is dedicated to assemble stacks manufactured by cosine into mirror modules (MM), building blocks of the NewATHENA optics. This new beamline is originally based on the X-ray parallel beam facility XPBF 2.0 at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB at BESSY II) but also includes additional features on the scanning scheme to improve the characterization time of each MM produced. Interoperability between MINERVA and XPBF 2.0 is nonetheless preserved to boost the mass production of the MMs and characterize their performance. MINERVA is now in operation and has been funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.