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F. E. Marshall (NASA), Swift Team Team
Swift is an autonomous, multiwavelength observatory selected by NASA to study gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows. Its Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) is a large coded mask instrument that will image GRBs in the 15 to 150 keV band. The X-ray Telescope (XRT) focuses X-rays in the 0.2 to 10 keV band onto CCDs, and the co-aligned Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) has filters and grisms for low-resolution spectroscopy. The Swift team is developing mission-specific tools for processing the telemetry into FITS files and for calibrating and selecting the data for further analysis with such mission-independent tools as XIMAGE and XSPEC. The FTOOLS-based suite of tools will be released to the community before launch with additional updates after launch. Documentation for the tools and standard receipes for their use will be available on the Swift Science Center (SSC) Web site (http://swiftsc.gsfc.nasa.gov), and the SSC will provide user assistance with an e-mail help desk. After the verification phase of the mission, all data will be available to the community as soon as it is processed in the Swift Data Center (SDC). Once all the data for an observation is available, the data will be transferred to the HEASARC and data centers in England and Italy. The data can then be searched and accessed using standard tools such as Browse. Before this transfer the quick-look data will be available on an ftp site at the SDC. The SSC will also provide documentation and simulation tools in support of the Swift Guest Investigator program.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #3
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.