The Moon Burst Energetics All-sky Monitor (MoonBEAM) CubeSat Concept
Abstract
With the public reporting of gravitational-wave candidates from LIGO/Virgo, the need for prompt accurate and well localized gamma-ray observations is key to multimessenger astronomy. Many gamma-ray observatories in low Earth orbit are not able to survey the entire sky due to a large blockage of sky from the Earth as well as detector downtime due to high particle activity in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) region. Therefore, we propose the Moon Burst Energetics All-sky Monitor (MoonBEAM) CubeSat concept. This concept would be a 12U CubeSat placed in cislunar space. With its Earth-Moon L3 halo orbit, the percentage of sky blocked by the Earth would be drastically decreased and the SAA down time would be nonexistent. Furthermore, MoonBEAM would provide simultaneous observations in combination with another gamma-ray instrument in low Earth orbit in order to constrain the GRB localization annulus on the sky. This will result in a reduced area of the sky needed for multiwavelength follow-up observations of kilonova emission. Using MEGAlib software tools we simulate the detector responses for MoonBEAM and quantify the localization capability and GRB coverage of the MoonBEAM concept.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #235
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AAS...23527104F