BurstCube: A CubeSat for Gravitational Wave Counterparts

The first simultaneous detection of a short gamma-ray burst (sGRB) with a Neutron Star merger detected in gravitational-waves (GW) proved that some GWs were created by sGRBs and propelled astronomy into a new multi-messenger era. In order to further study the connection between GWs and sGRBs we must increase the number of sGRB-GW simultaneous detections. To accomplish this we require full sky coverage in the gamma-ray regime. BurstCube aims to expand sky coverage in order to detect, localize, and rapidly disseminate information about gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). BurstCube is a 6U CubeSat with an instrument comprised of 4 Cesium Iodide scintillators coupled to arrays of Silicon photo-multipliers and will be sensitive to gamma-rays between ~50 keV and 1 MeV. BurstCube will assist current observatories, such as Swift and Fermi, in the detection of GRBs as well as provide astronomical context to gravitational wave events detected by LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA. BurstCube is currently in its development phase with a launch readiness date in Fall 2021.