GRBAlpha: a 1U CubeSat mission for validating timing-based gamma-ray burst localization
András Pál, M. Ohno, László Mészáros, Norbert Werner, J. Řípa, Marcel Frajt, Naoyoshi Hirade, Ján Hudec, Jakub Kapus, Martin Koleda, Robert László, Pavol Lipovský, Hiroto Matake, Miroslav Šmelko, Nagomi Uchida, B. Csák, Teruaki Enoto, Z. Frei, Y. Fukazawa, Gábor Galgóczi, Kengo Hirose, Syohei Hisadomi, Yuto Ichinohe, L. L. Kiss, Tsunefumi Mizuno, Kazuhiro Nakazawa, Hirokazu Odaka, H. Takahashi, Kento Torigoe
Abstract
GRBAlpha is a 1U CubeSat mission with an expected launch date in the first half of 2021. It carries a 75 × 75 × 5 mm CsI(Tl) scintillator, read out by a dual-channel multi-pixel photon counter (MPPC) setup, to detect gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The GRB detector is an in-orbit demonstration for the detector system on the Cubesats Applied for MEasuring and LOcalising Transients (CAMELOT) mission. While GRBAlpha provides 1/8th of the expected effective area of CAMELOT, the comparison of the observed light curves with other existing GRB monitoring satellites will allow us to validate the core idea of CAMELOT, i.e. the feasibility of timing-based localization