Swift's New Capability: Continuous Commanding

A new capability of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, called "continuous commanding", allows Swift to respond to targets of opportunity within 10 seconds. This capability allows Swift to receive commands in real-time because the spacecraft is now constantly in contact with the ground. This capability was developed to allow Swift to respond to early warning gravitational wave detections. Specifically, it will allow Swift to point the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) at the origin of the gravitational waves before or at the time of merger.

Simulations show that 60 seconds of early warning can double the rate of prompt GRB detection with arcminute localization, and 140 seconds guarantees observation anywhere on the unocculted sky. The latency of the LIGO/Virgo cyberinfrastructure is now the limiting factor in the detection yield.

Swift's new continuous commanding capability was demonstrated by responding to an external Fast Radio Burst (FRB) trigger. Swift was able to start slewing to the location of the FRB only 9 seconds after receiving the command.

Publication: A. Tohuvavohu et al., "Swiftly chasing gravitational waves across the sky in real-time", arXiv: 2410.05720

Acknowledgements: Podcast created with Google/NotebookLM. Illustration credits: NASA