GLAST: Status and Prospects

1. GLAST: Status and Prospects S. W. Digel Co-lead ISOC Science Operations Co-chair KIPAC GLAST Physics Department SLAC Annual Program Review

2. Overview • GLAST and the Large Area Telescope: Background • Relationship of SLAC to Development and Operations • LAT Operations at SLAC • Roles and responsibilities of the ISOC • Status of GLAST • GLAST in Launch & Early Operations (L&EO) • Prospects • Perspective on GLAST • Scientific Prospects (Briefly) • Summary SLAC Annual Program Review

3. Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope: Background • Instrument concept for the LAT was developed by W. B. Atwood, then at SLAC • GLAST collaboration was formed in the early 1990s, with substantial Stanford/SLAC representation • Early support from the DOE was important for development of the instrument concept • In 1999, NASA decided to go ahead with the mission, which took the GLAST name • LAT proposal (PI P. Michelson/Stanford) with DOE support was successful • Joint NASA/DOE mission in the U.S., with international support from France, Germany (GBM), Italy, Japan, and Sweden SLAC Annual Program Review

4. GLAST Background (2) • Project Office for development of the LAT is at SLAC (at least for a few more weeks) • Mechanical, Thermal, and Electronics design work was done at SLAC, including the construction of the LAT Testbed • The LAT was integrated and tested at SLAC • SLAC hosts the LAT Instrument Science Operations Center • KIPAC/SLAC Faculty, Staff, Postdocs and Students were actively involved in supporting LAT testing, planning for operations and analysis in the LAT collaboration • And now flight data are arriving SLAC Annual Program Review

5. Publication Review Board Membership and collaboration policies Group 1 Group 2 Flight Operations Group 3 Group 4 Science Operations Group 5 Group 6 Science Analysis Systems Group 7 …Group N ISOC in the LAT Collaboration • The ISOC is the core of the LAT support activities at SLAC • ISOC has close connections to LAT Science Groups • ISOC science staff participate in all Science Groups • AGN & GRB Science groups: Automated Science Processing • The LAT collab. participates in the ISOC • Some SO application development is supported, and analyses are coordinated with the Calibration & Analysis Science Working Group • SAS and FO too have support from the collaboration, with some developers resident at SLAC • During 60-day L&EO 50+ LAT collaborators will visit SLAC to support operations as Duty Scientists and participate in analyses SLAC Annual Program Review

6. ISOC Organization SLAC Annual Program Review

7. Roles & Responsibilities of the ISOC • Flight Operations (FO) • Command planning • Generating and validating commands and command sequences • Monitoring health and safety of the LAT • Maintaining and modifying flight software and the LAT Testbed • Science Operations (SO) • Monitoring data deliveries, processing, LAT performance • Calibration and optimization of LAT performance • Supporting mission planning • Processing and archiving Level 1 and Level 2 (‘Automated Science’) data • Science Analysis Systems (SAS) • Maintaining and optimizing the software that produces science data products • Distributing science data products and instrument analysis tools to the LAT Collaboration and the GLAST Science Support Center (GSSC) In each of these areas, important unique expertise and facilities are at SLAC FSW developers, LAT Testbed Integration & Test and Instrument Analysis team heritage, Mission Support Room Software project, database, and data management on a large scale & SLAC Computer Farm SLAC Annual Program Review

8. Status of GLAST • As you heard 3 times yesterday: Launched on June 11 • LAT was turned on 2 weeks ago & telemetry surpassed 1 billion events last Friday • Will complete ¼ orbit during this presentation • We are still very much within the 60-day L&EO phase of testing, calibrating, and tuning • Important aspects of that work remain but so far so good • Extremely exciting and busy time for the ISOC and LAT collaboration! SLAC Annual Program Review

9. Status of GLAST (2) • ISOC is running 24 hours per day Flight Operations and Science Operations (shift coordinator E. do Couto e Silva) in the Mission Support Room (Bldg 84) and currently has personnel at the Mission Operations Center (NASA GSFC) • The last time it was dark: 12:35 am June 24 Minutes later FO Shifter, SO Duty Scientists and Shift Coordinator arrived to track the turn-on of the LAT over night 12:54 am June 25 Turn-on continues SLAC Annual Program Review

10. Some Details for the Near Future • Principal studies remaining for L&EO: • Complete calibration (pedestals and gains) • Alignment (internal and with spacecraft) • Background studies – characterizing the particle environment • Configurations/threshold, trigger, and filter updates for the on-orbit trigger rates • Updating perimeter of the South Atlantic Anomaly • Commissioning on-board GRB detection • Commissioning ASP – ground processing of flares and GRBs • Validating other observing modes: ARR, ToO, CVZ, limb following, and 2-target • Refining survey mode • Updating instrument response functions SLAC Annual Program Review

11. More on Status • Remarkably few unanticipated issues – no roadblocks to science • Pointing control, timing, alignment, thermal stability are all looking good SLAC Annual Program Review

12. Prospects for GLAST: Perspective • The combination of area, FOV, angular resolution, readout time, and observing efficiency together represent a tremendous advance for astronomy at GeV energies • Within the next several weeks the LAT should detect more celestial g-rays than have been seen by all previous and current missions • Capability for studying transient sources and making deep observations of faint or diffuse sources is absolutely world beating SLAC Annual Program Review

13. Simulated LAT (>100 MeV, 1 yr) EGRET (>100 MeV) Simulated LAT (>1 GeV, 1 yr) Progression of Sensitivity • The questions that can be investigated deepen with improvements in sensitivity (to state the obvious) OSO-III (>50 MeV) SLAC Annual Program Review

14. Scientific Prospects • As S. Kahn described yesterday, the SLAC scientific focus on GLAST will be in three main areas: • Indirect detection of dark matter • Particle acceleration in cosmic sources • Relativistic outflows • E. do Couto e Silva on GLAST andGRBs and G. Madejski on GLAST and TeV Astrophysics will describe opportunities provided by GLAST in these areas • Gamma rays are the probe • Produced in well-understood interactions (pion decay, Bremsstrahlung, inverse Compton) with high-energy particles • Unattenuated (or attenuated in physically revealing ways) and they point back to their sources SLAC Annual Program Review

15. Prospects are Interrelated • Research themes will not always factor on the sky, especially for diffuse signals • For example, Dark matter annihilation would be much easier to detect if not for the foreground glow from cosmic-ray interactions with interstellar gas and stars (diagnostic of particle acceleration in the Milky Way) • Unique combination of expertise in KIPAC within the LAT collaboration, or really any place Simulation of Milky Way like galaxy in Dark Matter Density as seen from M31 (Taylor) No backgrounds SLAC Annual Program Review

16. Summary • GLAST is in orbit and the LAT is in the midst of its checkout – looking good • LAT has ground-breaking capabilities for observations in the GeV range • SLAC/KIPAC hosts the ISOC and is centrally involved with LAT operations, processing, and analysis • The scientific scope for the LAT is very broad, with Indirect detection of dark matter, Particle acceleration in cosmic sources, & Relativistic outflows as important themes • SLAC/KIPAC has a unique combination of expertise on these topics as well as deep understanding of the LAT SLAC Annual Program Review