Building ISOC Status Displays for the Large AreaTelescope aboard the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Observatory

Abstract

In September 2007 the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is scheduled to launch aboard a Delta II rocket in order to put two high-energy gamma-ray detectors, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) into low earth orbit. The Instrument Science Operations Center (ISOC) at SLAC is responsible for the LAT operations for the duration of the mission, and will therefore build an operations center including a monitoring station at SLAC to inform operations staff and visitors of the status of the LAT instrument and GLAST. This monitoring station is to include sky maps showing the location of GLAST in its orbit as well as the LAT's projected field of view on the sky containing known gamma-ray sources. The display also requires a world map showing the locations of GLAST and three Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) relative to the ground, their trail lines, and ''footprint'' circles indicating the range of communications for each satellite. The final display will also include a space view showing the orbiting and pointing information of GLAST and the TDRS satellites. In order to build the displays the astronomy programs Xephem, DS9, SatTrack, and STK were employed to model the position of GLAST and pointing information of the LAT instrument, and the programming utilities Python and Cron were used in Unix to obtain updated information from database and load them into the programs at regular intervals. Through these methods the indicated displays were created and combined to produce a monitoring display for the LAT and GLAST.