BurstCube: Operations

In late 2022, BurstCube will be deployed from the ISS for a one-year mission. It will point primarily zenith, scanning the entire unocculted sky for gamma-ray transients, with some deviations to minimize drag or maximize power to the solar panels. The four CsI scintillator detectors take data continuously except for tracts through the South Atlantic Anomaly. Onboard triggers will downlink the quick binned data via TDRSS and automatically add the time-tagged event data to the next near-earth network (NEN) pass. BurstCube will download all its binned data once per day; however, all further unbinned data is simply stored in a time-sensitive buffer to be requested by observers. Therefore, other unbinned data requests, along with the data itself, will have to be both uplinked and downlinked during NEN passes due to bandwidth restrictions. These unbinned data requests are prioritized on classification, from a confirmed GW-GRB coincident trigger from other instruments to unclassified to a confirmed binary black hole merger, and they are open to the community. How these requests are prioritized, how the ground system reacts to external alerts, and how the observatory operates are all covered in this poster.