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Swift
Swift is a NASA medium sized explorer mission,
developed in collaboration with UK and Italy. It was successfully launched
on November 20, 2004 from Cape Canaveral (USA). The primary scientific
objectives are to determine the origin of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) and
to pioneer their use as probes of the early universe. Swift is a
multiwavelegth observatory carrying three instruments: the Burst
Alert Telescope (BAT; Gamma Ray), the X-ray Telescope (XRT) and
the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT).
The Swift key characteristics are the rapid response to newly detected GRB
and rapid data dissemination.
As soon as the BAT discovers a new GRB, Swift rapidly relays its 1-4 arcmin
position estimate to the ground and triggers an
autonoumos spacecraft slew to bring the burst within the field of view
of XRT and UVOT to follow-up the afterglow.
Swift is expected to provide redshifts for the bursts and multi-wavelength
lightcurves for the duration of the afterglow. The BAT will also
perform a high sensitivity hard X-ray sky survey.
Mission Characteristics
Lifetime :
20 November 2004 (2-year nominal mission).
Energy Range :
0.2 - 150 keV plus UV/Optical telescope (170-650 nm).
Special Features
:
Autonomous spacecraft response to GRB. Accurate
position estimates within minutes. Multiwavelength observations.
Payload :
- Burst Alert Telescope (BAT; 15-150 keV)
Wide field-of-view coded-aperture imager. Eff. area 5240
cm2, FOV 1.4 sr half coded, ~4 arcmin position accuracy.
- X-Ray Telescope (XRT; 0.2-10.0 keV)
CCD Imaging spectrometer. Eff. area 110 cm2 @ 1.5 keV,
FOV 23.6´ X 23.6´, ~5 arcsec position accuracy
- UV/Optical Telescope (UVOT; 170-650 nm)
Modified Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with image-intensified
CCD detector. 6 color filters and 2 grism, FOV 17´ X 17´,
0.3 arcsec position accuracy.
[Swift Mission Page & Swift Science Center]
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