From 23rd to 25th April 2025, the ARRAKIHS Consortium held its 4th Consortium Meeting in Vienna, hosted at the Geozentrum of the University Centre Althanstrasse. The event brought together 73 contributors from ARRAKIHS mission to share updates, coordinate ongoing work, and define upcoming priorities as the mission advances through key phases of development.
The meeting began with a warm welcome from Franz Kerschbaum, Vice Dean of the University of Vienna, followed by an overview of recent progress presented by ARRAKIHS Principal Investigator, Rafael Guzmán. These opening sessions set the stage for a series of detailed presentations covering the mission’s scientific objectives, instrumentation status, and engineering developments. Notably, Carlos Corral Van Damme from ESA shared the latest roadmap towards the upcoming Instrument Preliminary Design Review (iPDR), providing important context for upcoming deliverables and milestones.
Plenary sessions were complemented by focused working groups and parallel meetings addressing major aspects of the mission. These included updates from the instrument and science teams, system engineering discussions, and planning for calibration, simulation pipelines, and mission operations. The sessions were moderated by key team members including Enrique Gaztañaga, Santiago Serrano, Rebekka Coles-Bieri, and Florian Kehl, among others.
Discussions went from technical topics—such as thermal and mechanical design constraints, environmental testing strategies, and detector calibration—to scientific workflows, including validation models and performance metrics. The collaborative environment allowed for productive cross-team dialogue, helping to align priorities across disciplines and ensure a coherent path forward.
To close the meeting, participants gathered at the University Observatory, where internal meetings of the ARRAKIHS Science Committee and Core Team took place.
We are grateful to the University of Vienna for their generous hospitality and outstanding organisational support.
