Current Status of HETE-2 Operations

The High Energy Transient Explorer (HETE-2) has been in orbit for nearly three years. After a slow startup, the operation of the spacecraft and its instrumentation is now stable and efficient. GRBs are being localized at a rate of ~25 per year, and the Soft X-ray Camera (SXC) is determining burst po...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:AIP conference proceedings 2004-01, Vol.727 (1), p.630-636
Main Authors: Vanderspek, R, Butler, N, Crew, G B, Dullighan, A, Prigozhin, G, Doty, J P, Villasenor, J N, Ricker, G R, Tamagawa, T, Torii, K, Kawai, N, Sakamoto, T, Sato, R, Suzuki, M, Urata, Y, Yamamoto, Y, Yoshida, A, Nakagawa, Y E, Yamazaki, T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ACCURACY
CAMERAS
COSMIC GAMMA BURSTS
COSMIC GAMMA SOURCES
COSMIC PHOTONS
COSMIC RAY DETECTION
COSMIC X-RAY BURSTS
GAMMA DETECTION
OPERATION
PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
SOFT X RADIATION
SPACE VEHICLES
SUPERNOVAE
TELESCOPE COUNTERS
TRANSIENTS
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Summary:The High Energy Transient Explorer (HETE-2) has been in orbit for nearly three years. After a slow startup, the operation of the spacecraft and its instrumentation is now stable and efficient. GRBs are being localized at a rate of ~25 per year, and the Soft X-ray Camera (SXC) is determining burst positions with arcminute precision on a regular basis. As described elsewhere in this conference, HETE-2 has essentially solved the mystery of the 'dark bursts' and helped confirm the connection between long GRBs and type Ic supernovae. Because of its excellent low-energy response, HETE has proven to be a capable detector of X-ray rich GRBs and X-ray flashes. In this paper, we give an update on the spacecraft and instruments and describe some of the more significant developments of the last 6-12 months. We also highlight issues which, although described in part on the HETE web page (http: //space.mit.edu/HETE), may not be clear to many observers.
ISSN:0094-243X
1551-7616
DOI:10.1063/1.1810923