Andromeda: a mission to determine the gamma-ray burst distance scale

Fiona A. Harrison; Walter R. Cook III; Thomas A. Prince; Steven M. Schindler; Charles J. Hailey; Stephen E. Thorsett

doi:10.1117/12.218402

1 September 1995 Andromeda: a mission to determine the gamma-ray burst distance scale

Fiona A. Harrison, Walter R. Cook III, Thomas A. Prince, Steven M. Schindler, Charles J. Hailey, Stephen E. Thorsett

Proceedings Volume 2518, EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Instrumentation for Astronomy VI; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.218402
Event: SPIE's 1995 International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1995, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

Andromeda is a wide-field, imaging, hard x-ray/soft gamma-ray instrument capable of detecting gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) a factor approximately 20 times fainter than GRO/BATSE. During one-year of a two-year mission, it could determine whether GRBs are Galactic or cosmological in origin by searching for an excess of bursts towards the nearby Andromeda galaxy (M31). As a pointed, imaging instrument with sensitivity in the 10 - 200 keV band significantly better than previous coded-aperture instruments, Andromeda is capable of carrying out important secondary science objectives: for example, studying the soft-gamma- repeater and x-ray transient populations of M31 and the Galactic bulge. Andromeda is a coded aperture gamma-ray telescope consisting of a hexagonal coded mask coupled to an alkali- halide imaging scintillation detector, a flight-proven technology adapted from the balloon- borne Caltech gamma-ray imaging payload (GRIP). The new instrument is optimized for the 10 - 200 keV band and has 1.5 degree angular resolution over a 17 degree FWHM field of view. Andromeda is designed to be a small, low-cost mission, and draws its design largely from existing instrumentation. Andromeda was submitted to the STEDI program, and will also be proposed as a NASA Small Explorer.

Citation Download Citation

Fiona A. Harrison, Walter R. Cook III, Thomas A. Prince, Steven M. Schindler, Charles J. Hailey, and Stephen E. Thorsett "Andromeda: a mission to determine the gamma-ray burst distance scale", Proc. SPIE 2518, EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, (1 September 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.218402

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KEYWORDS

Sensors

Gamma radiation

X-rays

Space operations

Galactic astronomy

Telescopes

Time correlated photon counting

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