INTEGRAL satellite Revolution Number: 
(a revolution is defined from perigee passage to perigee passage, ~ 71 hrs, 49 mins)

French version

Integral planning	Revolution reports	Radiations belts
Integral's latest news	Integral Science & Technology	ESA Integral page
Astronomer's Telegram	ISDC shift team page	A&A Integral special issue

Welcome to the ISDC operator's homepage. I grew up in Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine) at the foot of the well-known French observatory, and now, by chance I work at the ISDC as an operator in the Shift Team for the Integral Satellite (an ESA mission). The ISDC is a part of the Geneva Observatory. Integral was launched on 17 October 2002 from Baikonour. It follows an elliptic orbit, with an apogee at about 153'000 km from the Earth and a perigee (closest point to the Earth) at about 9000 km (see how is the orbit at Heavens-Above). Its purpose is to observe the deep sky in the X-ray and Gamma ray bands. Gamma rays are the most energetic radiations in the universe. They can be caused by colliding neutron stars, matter caught by black holes, exploding stars, or particles trapped in strong magnetic fields. The satellite has several instruments working in different fields: IBIS (Gamma-ray Imager, for energies between 15 keV and 10 MeV) JEM-X (Joint European X-Ray Monitor, energy range: 3 keV to 35 keV) SPI (Spectrometer, energy range: 20 keV to 8 MeV) OMC (Optical Monitor) IREM (Integral Radiation Monitor). Now after more than 10 years of mission, Integral has been able to observe many Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and about 100 new gamma-ray sources per year.

Proton 5 launcher

INTEGRAL Science Data Center (ISDC) 16 Chemin d'Ecogia, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland Tél. ("the barn"): +41 22 379 21 73 -- Fax: +41 22 379 21 85	Galactic center as seen by Integral		Artist's view of Integral's Earth observation	Preparation before launch
INTEGRAL Picture of the Month
May 14, 2009: ESA missions Planck and Herschel launched successfully.
Article about Integral's discovery of a new X-ray nova

About ECOGIA: a few historical notes

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Page created Nov 10, 2003 / last updated March 7, 2012