The BurstCube Experiment

The BurstCube CubeSat is a 6U (10 x 20 x 30 cm) satellite, scheduled for launch in 2022, that will increase sky coverage to detect gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and complement currently operating missions such as Swift and Fermi. The primary science goal of BurstCube is to detect and characterize the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves, such as short GRBs. BurstCube will improve sky coverage and localization for GRBs; this will be done by BurstCube’s four CsI scintillators. The scintillators are read out using silicon photomultipliers rather than traditional photomultipliers like those used in Fermi-GBM. This contribution will detail the hardware and software developments, with simulated data generated with the Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy library (MEGAlib).