Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 138, 557-558

Precise GRB source locations from the renewed interplanetary network

T.L. Cline¹ - S. Barthelmy¹ - P. Butterworth¹ - F. Marshall¹ - T. McClanahan¹ - D. Palmer¹ - J. Trombka¹ - K. Hurley² - R. Gold³ - R. Aptekar⁴ - D. Frederiks⁴ - S. Golenetskii⁴ - V. Il'Inskii⁴ - E. Mazets⁴ - G. Fishman⁵ - C. Kouveliotou⁵ - C. Meegan⁵

Send offprint request: T.L. Cline

1 - NASA-GSFC, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, U.S.A.
e-mail: cline@apache.gsfc.nasa.gov
2 - UCB-SSL, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A.
3 - APL, Laurel, MD 20723, U.S.A.
4 - Ioffe PTI, St. Petersburg, 194021 Russia, U.S.A.
5 - NASA-MSFC, Huntsville, AL 35812, U.S.A.

Received December 29, 1998; accepted February 24, 1999

Abstract:

A new interplanetary network (IPN) is made possible by the modification of the NEAR mission, now at 2 AU distance. With Ulysses and the near-Earth GRB monitors, this fully long-baseline network will produce GRB localizations at a rate of about one per week, with accuracies varying from several to tens of arc minutes. Given the delays inherent in the collection of deep space data, high-precision alerts with delays under one day should be possible at a rate of one to several per month. An automatic analysis system is being developed to optimize the process.

Key words: gamma-rays: bursts -- instrumentation: miscellaneous