[Previous] | [Session 26] | [Next]
N. Gehrels (NASA/GSFC), Swift Team
Swift is a NASA gamma-ray burst MIDEX mission that is in development for launch in 2003. It is a multiwavelength transient observatory for GRB astronomy. The goals of the mission are to determine the origin of GRBs and their afterglows and use bursts to probe the early Universe. It will also perform a survey of the hard X-ray sky to a sensitivity level of ~0.6 mCrab. A wide-field camera will detect hundreds of GRBs per year to 5 times fainter than BATSE. Sensitive narrow-field X-ray and UV/optical telescopes will be pointed at the burst location in 20 to 70 sec by an autonomously controlled ``swift" spacecraft. For each burst, arcsec positions will be determined and optical/UV/X-ray/gamma-ray spectrophotometry performed. Measurements of redshift will be performed for many of the bursts. The instrumentation is a combination of superb existing flight-spare hardware and design from XMM and Spectrum-X/JET-X and development of a coded-aperture camera with a large-area (~0.5 square meter) CdZnTe detector array. Much of the hardware is currently in fabrication and integration. Key components of the mission are vigorous follow-up and outreach programs to engage the public and astronomical community in Swift.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://swift.sonoma.edu. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.