Future Prospects for NASA's Gamma Ray Astronomy Program
Neil Gehrels
on behalf of the Gamma Ray Astrophysics Program Working Group
Abstract
The Gamma Ray Astrophysics Program Working Group (GRAPWG)is an ad-hoc
committee formed by NASA to provide recommendations about the future of
gamma-ray astrophysics. The group had a series of meetings in 1996-97
leading to a report in April 1997 and another series in 1998-99 leading to
a report in July 1999. The highest priority recommendations of the first
report was for a next generation high energy gamma-ray mission called GLAST
to follow on the successes of EGRET. Other major-mission recommendations
were for focusing hard x-rays and nuclear line & MeV continuum
astrophysics. In the MIDEX and SMEX categories the priorities were for
gamma-ray burst and hard x-ray survey missions. These recommendations are
now partially fulfilled with the GLAST mission and Constellation-X mission
(with a hard x-ray focusing instrument) in definition phase and the Swift
gamma-ray burst MIDEX in Phase A. The GRAPWG recommendations for the
future beyond these missions are contained in the July 1999 report and will
be presented. Also presented will be the status of the current NASA
strategic planning process.
File translated from TEX by TTH, version 2.32.
On 16 Jul 1999, 12:06.