With this week's start of the scientific satellite mission GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Telescope) of the North American Space Agency NASA a new milestone in space exploration is set. With a Delta 2920H-10 rocket the mission has started from spaceport Cape Canaveral on June 11. GLAST is supposed to measure gamma-ray bursts in space and therewith explore a multiplicity of astrophysical phenomena.
For the GLAST mission, the main instrument Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the secondary instrument GBM (GLAST Burst Monitor) are belonging to, the Jena-Optronik GmbH in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics developed and manufactured the essential parts of the GBM and prepared it for its use in space. The GBM detector system is supposed to record gamma-ray bursts and to immediately announce both via an international network of observation wards and satellites and to the Large Area Telescope so that subsequent monitoring can be triggered. The Gamma Burst Monitor itself is also recording all available data (spectra and time response) of the ray bursts.
GBM consists of twelve sodium iodide (NaI) scintillation detectors and two bismuth germanat (BGO) scintillation detectors. Through the impinging gamma incidents light flashes are generated in the detector crystals, which are amplified by multipliers and further processed by extremely fast electronic assemblies. In order to achieve a preferably large field of view to grasp the bursts the detectors are evenly arranged around the periphery of the GLAST satellite.
Over the entire period of the mission of five years the GLAST Burst Monitor will annually detect and record up to 200 Gamma Bursts.
