Dear readers,

Greetings and welcome! It is my privilege and pleasure to address the opening remarks for the first issue of the EP Newsletter. As the foreseen launch of EP approaching, the mission is drawing increasing attention from the time-domain and high-energy astrophysics communities in China and worldwide. Moreover, there are also growing interests from potential users of EP data to learn more about the instrument capability and performance, the science operations and observing modes. We feel it is the right time to release the EP Newsletter, which we hope to serve as a medium to bridge the EP project and the wider community.

     The EP development team is large, comprising quite a few R&D groups working for the instruments and spacecraft, as well as the ground segments at the Science Centre and the Mission Support Centre, and the management team. It pools in total over a hundred personnel from a number of institutions and contractors, in China and Europe. The Newsletter could also update the team members with progress made by different groups and related project activities.

     We are now in the final and critical stage of the mission development. Since a few months ago, the satellite assembly and integration have been completed, and a series of final extensive and comprehensive tests and experiments have been started, which will lead to the long-awaited completion and delivery of the EP satellite in October. I am really glad and excited to see the project come to this far, which is by no means easy to achieve. We have gone through many difficult times and challenges, of technology and management alike, against all odds, including the Covid-19 pandemic. Every member of the team has been working extremely hard in the past years to make this possible. I pay my full personal respect to them, for their devotion, diligence, and passion. I hope that our Newsletter readers will be able to share some of the feelings of mine, by getting in touch with some of our team members after reading various articles about how the mission is built.

     Finally, let me congratulate and thank the EP Newsletter editorial team, Hui Sun, Maurizio Falanga, Jianlan Song and others, for their wonderful work to make this happen, at last.

                                                                                                                                                 Weimin Yuan (PI of the EP mission)

                                                                                                                                                 NAO, CAS

                                                                                                                                                 Aug. 5^th, 2023