On 22 July 2026, the National Centre for Nuclear Research hosted the Kick-Off Meeting / Progress Meeting 3 for the NAHEPaM (NewATHENA High-Energy Particle Monitor) project. The project is being carried out by the National Centre for Nuclear Research and the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences under a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA).
The monitor will measure the flux of high-energy particles striking the future NewATHENA mission. This will enable scientists to determine the level of X-ray background in real time, whilst observing the celestial objects under study, with unprecedented accuracy.
The meeting was attended by representatives of all project partners. The European Space Agency was represented by Dr Alexander Stefanescu and Dr Jean-Philippe Halain from the PRODEX office. Prof. Agata Różańska and Dr Rafał Wojaczyński were present on behalf of CAMK PAN. The National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) was represented by members of the core project team: Prof. Agnieszka Pollo, Dominik Rybka, Dr Tomasz Szczęśniak, Piotr Mazerewicz and Dr Roch Kwiatkowski. Other members of the project team also took part in the discussions.
The meeting marked the start of a new phase of the project, funded under the European Space Agency’s PRODEX programme. During the meeting, the work plan for the coming months, the structure of the work packages and the progress made so far in the development of the NAHEPaM instrument were discussed. Another important topic was the measures aimed at increasing the chances of the instrument being included in the final configuration of the NewAthena mission. As a result of the discussions, key tasks to be carried out during the next phase of work were identified.
