5 Process

The speed of the alert limits the utility of the source fields to be defined by the IPN. The giant SGR event of 1998 August 27 was first reported on the next day by the Konus experiment (CGRO having been below the horizon), using an automatic scheme somewhat analogous to the well-known "BACODINE", now incorporated into the GCN ([Barthelmy et al. 1997]). A computer-generated search is done through the entire GGS-Wind spacecraft data stream as it is received (before it is split off into separate instrument data, to be sent to the Wind experimenters) to find a gamma-ray burst memory dump. If found, this count-rate history is automatically sent to team members, (there being no source location from the GGS-Wind data alone other than an ecliptic hemisphere preference, unlike the BATSE data distributed by GCN). At present, the IPN team members finish the comparisons themselves, determine the resulting source location, and deliver it to the GCN and the world community. In the case of the prototype giant SGR event in August, that was done within hours of receipt on the next day. This delay time for intervention by humans can and will be eliminated when this process is entirely automated.