The ECLAIRs micro-satellite mission for gamma-ray burst multi-wavelength observations

Abstract

Gamma-ray bursts (GRB)—at least those with a duration longer than a few seconds—are the most energetic events in the Universe and occur at cosmological distances. The ECLAIRs micro-satellite, to be launched in 2009, will provide multi-wavelength observations of GRB, to study their astrophysics and to use them as cosmological probes. Furthermore, in 2009 ECLAIRs is expected to be the only space-borne instrument capable of providing a GRB trigger in near real-time with sufficient localization accuracy for GRB follow-up observations with the powerful ground-based spectroscopic telescopes available by then. A “Phase A study” of the ECLAIRs project has recently been launched by the French Space Agency CNES, aiming at a detailed mission design and selection for flight in 2006. The ECLAIRs mission is based on a CNES micro-satellite of the “Myriade” family and dedicated ground-based optical telescopes. The satellite payload combines a 2 sr field-of-view coded aperture mask gamma-camera using 6400 CdTe pixels for GRB detection and localization with 10 arcmin precision in the 4–50 keV energy band, together with a soft X-ray camera for onboard position refinement to 1 arcmin. The ground-based optical robotic telescopes will detect the GRB prompt/early afterglow emission and localize the event to arcsec accuracy, for spectroscopic follow-up observations.