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K. Hurley (UC Berkeley), T. Cline, J. Trombka, S. Barthelmy (NASA-MSFC), E. Mazets, S. Golenetskii (Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia), R.M. Kippen (University of Alabama at Huntsville), C. Kouveliotou (USRA-MSFC, Huntsville AL), M. Feroci (I.A.S. Rome), F. Frontera (ITESRE, Bologna), C. Guidorzi (Univ. of Ferrara)
The interplanetary network now has the Ulysses and Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft as its most distant points, and Konus-Wind, BATSE, and the BeppoSAX GRBM as near-Earth points. In this configuration, the IPN triangulates about one GRB per week. The error box sizes are 20 square arcminutes and larger, and the delays are in the 10 hours and longer range. As of March 2000, 14 GRB error boxes have been circulated, resulting in 3 counterpart detections and two spectroscopic redshift determinations. By the time this paper is presented, we expect these numbers to roughly double.
We discuss the IPN operations and introduce a service for notifying people via pager and cell phone of an impending GRB localization, prior to the actual issuance of a Global Coordinates Network message. We also compare the IPN detection rate, delay, and error box size with those of other missions, both in operation today (e.g. BeppoSAX) and to be launched in the near future (e.g. HETE-II).
We are grateful for support under JPL Contract 958056, NASA grants NAG 5-7810 and NAG 5-3585, and under the NEAR participating scientist program.