A Scientific Trigger Unit for Space-Based Real-Time Gamma Ray Burst Detection, II - Data Processing Model and Benchmarks

Understand

The Scientific Trigger Unit (UTS) is a satellite equipment designed to detect Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) observed by the onboard 6400 pixels camera ECLAIRs.

• It is foreseen to equip the low-Earth orbit French-Chinese satellite SVOM and acts as the GRB trigger unit for the mission.
• The UTS analyses in real-time and in great details the onboard camera data in order to select the GRBs, to trigger a spacecraft slew re-centering each GRB for the narrow field-of-view instruments, and to alert the ground telescope network for GRB follow-up observations.
• A few GRBs per week are expected to be observed by the camera; the UTS targets a close to 100% trigger efficiency, while being selective enough to avoid fake alerts.