Gamma ray large area space telescope balloon flight engineering model: overview

• Published in: 2001 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (Cat. No.01CH37310) Vol. 1; pp. 447 - 451 vol.1
• Main Authors: Thompson, D.J., Hartman, R.C., Kelly, H., Kotani, T., Krizmanic, J., Moiseev, A., Ormes, J.F., Ritz, S., Schaefer, R., Sheppard, D., Singh, S., Godfrey, G., do Couto e Silva, E., Dubois, R., Giebels, B., Haller, G., Handa, T., Kamae, T., Kavelaars, A., Linder, T., Ozaki, M., Rochester, L.S., Roterman, F.M., Russell, J.J., Sjogren, M., Usher, T., Valtersson, P., Waite, A.P., Williams, S.M., Lauben, D., Michelson, P., Nolan, P.L., Wallace, J., Mizuno, T., Fukazawa, Y., Hirano, K., Mizushima, H., Ogata, S., Grove, J.E., Ampe, J., Johnson, W.N., Lovellette, M., Phlips, B., Wood, D., Sadrozinski, H.F.-W., Briber, S., Dann, J., Hirayama, M., Johnson, R.P., Kliewer, S., Kroger, W., Manildi, J., Paliaga, G., Rowe, W.A., Schalk, T., Webster, A., Kuss, M., Lumb, N., Spandre, G.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2001
• Subjects: Aerospace engineering; Collaboration; Data acquisition; Extraterrestrial phenomena; Instruments; Optical design; Plastics; Poles and towers; Satellites; Telescopes
• ISBN: 9780780373242; 0780373243
• ISSN: 1082-3654; 2577-0829
• DOI: 10.1109/NSSMIC.2001.1008496

The Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Large Area Telescope (LAT) is a pair-production high-energy (>20 MeV) gamma-ray telescope being built by an international partnership of astrophysicists and particle physicists for a satellite launch in 2006, designed to study a wide variety of high-energy astrophysical phenomena. As part of the development effort, the collaboration has built a Balloon Flight Engineering Model (BFEM) for flight on a high-altitude scientific balloon. The BFEM is approximately the size of one of the 16 GLAST-LAT towers and contains all the components of the full instruments: plastic scintillator anticoincidence system (ACD), high-Z foil/Si strip pair-conversion tracker (TKR), CsI hodoscopic calorimeter (CAL), triggering and data acquisition electronics (DAQ), commanding system, power distribution, telemetry, real-time data display, and ground data processing system. The principal goal of the balloon flight was to demonstrate the performance of this instrument configuration under conditions similar to those expected in orbit. Results from a balloon flight from Palestine, Texas, on August 4, 2001, show that the BFEM successfully obtained gamma-ray data in this high-background environment.