BurstCube Master Observation Catalog Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. BurstCube Science Mission Operations Center
  2. Published by
    NASA/GSFC HEASARC
Abstract
      This table records high-level information for the observations obtained with the BurstCube mission and provides access to the BurstCube data. The mission BurstCube was a 6U CubeSat with the primary objective to search localized and characterized sky events in the energy band 10 keV - 1 MeV, with emphasis to short Gamma-ray Burst. It was launched on March 21, 2024, on a SpaceX commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station from where it was deployed in space on April 18, 2024. The instrument consists of four Cesium Iodide (CsI) scintillators, each read out by 116 silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). During operation, BurstCube was to monitor the sky with its large Field of View (~> 6 sr) and send down data in two modes. The Continuous Binned Data (CBD) mode has spectra binned in 16 channels (counted as 0-15) and collected every N second, where N is an adjustable value, and a Time-Tagged Event (T3E) mode, where each event is time-tagged and a spectral channel within 1024 channels is assigned. Data in the two modes were collected by the detector. The CBD mode data were always collected and sent on ground. Data in T3E are sent on ground if a transient event was triggered on board or if requested from ground (RT3E). The mission was set to operate for one year; however, a number of challenges with the spacecraft (attitude control system sensors and GPS malfunctioning and one of the solar arrays did not deploy) shortened the mission lifetime, as well as rearranged the planned mission operations. The science period started in late May and ended on September 14, 2024, due to the orbit decay. The instrument was not always operating, and data were downloaded on ground for only a subset of days during the science period (see the <a href="/docs/burstcube/archive/burstcube_timeline.html">BurstCube timeline</a>). The data were mainly collected in the CBD mode and few observations have data in event mode. The data are divided into intervals of one day and labeled with a sequence number (YYMMDD) which represents two digits each for the year, the month, and the day. This database table contains one record for each sequence number and includes parameters related to the observation. The BurstCube data archive includes 84 observations: all observations have housekeeping data, 45 observations have CBD data and 7 observations have event data. The CBD data were all collected with an integration time of 0.256 s and are provided as an unfiltered file, an equivalent file with some filtering applied, and a plot to show the difference between the unfiltered and filtered data and the orbits. None of the event data were triggered but they were requested to be downloaded from ground. There are a number of caveats provided by the instrument teams collected in <a href="/docs/burstcube/archive/burstcube_archive_caveats.pdf">this document</a>. The contents of this database table are generated at the HEASARC using the data delivered as the final archive from the BurstCube Science Mission Operations Center, where the data pipeline was run. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
    
Keywords
  1. Observation
Bibliographic source
2020SPIE11444E..1XP
See also HTML
https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/burcbmastr.html
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://nasa.heasarc/burcbmastr

Access

IVOA Table Access TAP
https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xamin/vo/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
Web browser access HTML
https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/w3query.pl?tablehead=name=heasarc_burcbmastr&Action=More+Options&Action=Parameter+Search&ConeAdd=1

History

2025-09-05T00:00:00
Resource record created
2025-09-05

Contact

Name
NASA/GSFC HEASARC help desk
E-Mail
heasarc-vo at athena.gsfc.nasa.gov