INTEGRAL Mission and Spacecraft Operations

INTEGRAL Mission and Spacecraft Chronology and Notes

• ESA Science Program Committee endorses the extension of the INTEGRAL mission until Dec 2014. (18Nov2010)
• ESA Science Program Committee endorses the extension of the INTEGRAL mission until Dec 2012. (see comments/history below from Oct2008) (02Oct2009)
• AO-7 data right proposals (72 total, 608 targets) have been collected; approved end Sep2009 (03Jul2009)
• ESA Space Science Advisory Committee and Astronomy Working Group re-state their recommendation to continue INTEGRAL operations as planned and as recommended by its User Group, stating that substantial cost savings (as required from ESA's budget shortcomings) cannot be obtained from this mission without seriously cutting into its science performance. (24Apr2009)
• AO-7 observing program approved (15Apr2009)
  
• AO-7 observing proposals (76, for 107 of 29 Ms) have been collected (20Feb2009)
  
• ESA and the INTEGRAL User Group adjusted durations of current and future AO's to match calendar years after 2010. This implies extending AO6 by 2 and AO-7 by 2.5 months. These extensions allow for compensation of backlogs, mainly. (19Nov2008)
  
• ESA has revised the scheme for its mission extension management, and coherently evaluates all of these together, for cost control and budget management for future missions. INTEGRAL has been recommended for extension till at least end 2012 by ESA's AWG, supported by the following SSAC meeting. Endorsement by the Science Program Committee of ESA is held back till spring 2009, due to the current high-level political negotiations on ESA's policies. Operations expenses are ~1% of its total cost per year (i.e.,~7M) (20Oct2008)
• The newly-composed INTEGRAL User Group decided to re-organize AO's: A first round will collect proposals for targets of pointings (former key program AO plus open-program parts requesting specific targets), while a second round will collect proposals for science object data rights on these (former open-program parts which were amalgamated). The Russian data share will be managed by a fixed time share for Russian scientists exclusively, under the same rules. (16Jun2008)
  
• Proposals for the Key programs of the AO-6 period have been collected by end Nov 2007. 13 proposals with overbooking factor 6 have been obtained. (04Dec2007) Approved were 3 multi-year continuations from previous AO and 3 new Key Programs (21Jan2008)
  
• INTEGRAL "Lustrum" Science workshop in Sardinia celebrated 5 years of INTEGRAL with 72 talks and 26 posters in a 3-day meeting with ~130 participants (ESA Press Release)(19Oct2007)
• ESA's Coordinator of Astrophysics Missions decides to dissolve the INTEGRAL Science Working Team, to align INTEGRAL's advisory structure with that of XMM-Newton (17Oct2007)
  
• ESA's Astronomy Working Group (AWG) "strongly recommends" the INTEGRAL Mission Extension till end of 2012 (10Oct2007), adopted by ESA's Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) on Oct 17, endorsed by ESA's Science Program Committee (SPC) on Nov. 12, 2007 (ESA Press Release) (17Oct2007/13Nov2007)
  
• A reaction-wheel hick-up caused an automatic 'Safe-Mode' interval, normal ops recovered after 12 hrs (14Jun2007)
• Proposals for the AO-5 were collected: 160 proposals with a factor 5.8 oversubscription of available time have been submitted (20Apr2007)
  
• Proposals for the Key Program of INTEGRAL Period 5 were collected: 22 total, requesting 9 times more observing time than available in the 17Aug2007-16Aug2008 period (52 Msec). Many proposals are of a multi-year nature (17Nov2006) The TAC reviewed proposals, and established a "Key Program for AO-5" with Galactic Center, Cygnus Region, and North Ecliptic Pole as main target regions (19Dec2006)
  
• INTEGRAL Science Workshop in Moscow 3-7 July with 190 contributions; program posted on workshop website (02Jul2006)
• INTEGRAL funding in the US has been confirmed up to 2010 at the requested level, after a successful Senior Review (12May2006)
  
• Proposals for the 4th Observing Period have been collected (142 total, requesting 8 times more observing time than available in the 17Aug2006-16Aug2007 period (25Apr2006)
• Slight adjustments made in the normal dither pattern (rev.421; stepsize now 2.17deg; 2.0 deg used for hex pattern and calibration references) (23Mar2006)
  
• Telemetry readjustments are necessary due to background increase (solar activity), SPI reaching tlm saturation occasionally (14Mar2006)
  
• ESA approval of extension for mission operations till Dec 2010 (05Dec2005)
  
• ESA's Science Program Committee endorses the mission extension: approved till Dec2008, budget for INTEGRAL operations approved till Dec 2010) (21Nov2005)
• INTEGRAL User Group endorses 'key programs' supplement of public annual AO programmes (15Nov2005)
  
• INTEGRAL Science Working Team agrees on AO-4 Core Program: Homogenization of exposure along the plane of the Galaxy, stop GPS, await results of deep extragalactic survey and inner-Galaxy latitude scan (06Oct2005)
  
• ESA's Astronomy Working Group endorses 4-year rolling mission extension (till Dec2010) (22Sep2005)
  
• INTEGRAL User Group inauguration meeting (11Jul2005)
• Crab Calibration Observations (rev300) (28Mar2005)
  
• Science Operations Center (ISOC) reorganized and moved to Madrid/Spain (ESAC) (15Feb2005)
  
• AO-3 beginning (ending 17 Aug 2006) (18Feb2005)
  
• AO-3 program established from proposals (10Jan2005)
• Crab Calibration Observations (rev170) (04Mar2004)
• AO-2 beginning (17Dec2003)
• ESA's Science Program Committe decides to extend the INTEGRAL mission till 2008 (19Nov2003)
  
• Crab Calibration Observations (rev102) (14Aug2003)
• Crab Calibration Observations (rev42) (16Feb2003)
• AO-1 beginning of science operations (17Dec2002)
  
• Commissioning Phase with Cyg Region Calibrations (rev11ff) (16Nov2002)
  
• Successful launch from Baikonur, by Proton rocket (17Oct2002) Total cost of this mission up to now were ~620 Mio EUR, carried by all ESA partners and RUS.
• ESA Selection of INTEGRAL as the next Gamma-Ray Mission (1993)
  

SPI Instrument Performance Notes & News