INTEGRAL Science Data Centre ISDC

Principal Investigator:

Thierry Courvoisier, Geneva Observatory, Switzerland with collaborating scientific institutes in Switzerland (Geneva Observatory), Ireland (UC Dublin), Denmark (DSRI Copenhagen, U Obs. Copenhagen), Italy (IFCTR Milano, IAS Frascati), France (CE Saclay), Germany (U Tuebingen, MPE Garching), USA (NASA/GSFC Greenbelt), Poland (Copernicus Center Warsaw).

The ISDC, located in Versoix, close to the Geneva Observatory (Switzerland) will be the centre in which the Integral payload telemetry data will be processed to a level at which all users can pursue the scientific interpretation of the data. The data will be corrected for instrumental signatures and some standard scientific processing and analysis will be performed. The ISDC is the place where the archive and derived products will be built and made accessible to the world wide astronomical community. Scientists will have the possibility to visit the ISDC to familiarise themselves with Integral data.

The main tasks of the ISDC are outlined below.

Pre-process scientific data to create and maintain mission data products (science archive).
Monitor instruments health and performance to verify that scientific objectives of an on-going observation are being met.
Provide quick look facility in order to examine critical payload parameters in short time to allow for corrections during the on-going observation.
Recognize transient events as targets of opportunity and inform the ISOC.
Support of the time allocation process through collaboration with the ISOC in assessing technical feasibility of observing proposals.
Make pre-processed data and scientific data archive available to the scientific community.
Provide instrument teams (on their request) with off-line raw data to allow study and analysis of their instrument performance.
Participate -- in collaboration with instrument PI teams -- in the definition and analysis of pre-launch and in-orbit calibration data.
Provide facilities and assistance in data analysis to the scientific community (General Observers)

View and location of the ISDC building

ISDC data flow

Scientific motivation for the ISDC.

There will be different users for the ISDC: PI teams (for instruments and the ISDC PI-team itself), General Observers (PIs of accepted observing proposals), Members of the INTEGRAL Science Working Team (using guaranteed time observations (core programme) ) and the scientific community at large, making use of the public Integral data or other features offered by the archive system. Integral will perform different types of observations: pointed observations according to the observing programme (accepted observing proposals), the Galactic Plane Survey, Target of Opportunity observations and observations of serendipitous sources including gamma-ray bursts. The Integral instruments cover a wide range (almost 7 decades) of photon energies with various capabilities on imaging, spectroscopy and timing. The ISDC will ensure an optimum common analysis of all data in a uniform and consistent way.

In particular the ISDC will

Find - and react to - possible candidates for TOO observations in order to help detecting transient sources
Provide facilities to detect new sources during the Galactic Plane Survey and also during slews and in between pointed observations
Support coordinated multiwavelength observations on AGN, galactic compact sources, pulsars, gamma-ray bursts etc.
Support use of Integral data to astronomers not familiar with gamma-ray data.

Details of the current design of the ISDC are providedhere (PDF, 3 pages).

INTEGRAL Science Data Centre home page

Update 09 March 1999, C.Winkler