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INTEGRAL

Impression of INTEGRAL in orbit (courtesy of ESA)

The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) of the European Space Agency was successfully launched on October 17, 2002. It was lifted off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on a Russian Proton launcher and placed in a 72-hour elliptical orbit, ranging from 9,000 km up to 155,000 km from Earth. INTEGRAL is the successor of the ESA gamma-ray observatory Cos-B and the NASA gamma-ray Observatory CGRO. It produced a complete map of the sky in the soft gamma-ray waveband and it is capable of performing high spectral and spatial observations in gamma rays. The observatory was also equipped with X-ray and optical detectors to provide simultaneous observations in these wavebands.

Mission Characteristics

Lifetime
Oct 2002–Feb 2025
Special Features
First mission to perform simultaneous high-resolution spectroscopy and imaging across a broad range of gamma-ray energies

Payload

SPI

Energy Range
20 keV – 8 MeV
Effective Area
500 cm2
Field of View
16°
Angular Resolution
2°
Energy Resolution
500 (E/ΔE) at 1 MeV
Spectrometer with coded aperture mask and a germanium array detector

IBIS

Energy Range
15 kev – 10 MeV
Effective Area
2600 cm (CdTe array)
3100 cm (CsI array)
Field of View
9° × 9°
Angular Resolution
12′
Imager with coded aperture mask and CdTe and CsI arrays

Joint European X-ray Monitor (JEM-X)

Energy Range
3–35 keV
Effective Area
500 cm2 each
Field of View
4.8°
Angular Resolution
3′
Coded aperture mask with 2 high pressure microstrip gas chambers

Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC)

Wavelength
500–850 nm
Field of View
5° × 5°
50 mm lens with CCD

Science Highlights

  • Provided high detail maps of the Milky Way in hard X-rays and soft gamma rays
  • Created a precise map of 511 keV electron-positron annihilation in the galactic plane
  • Observed hundreds of GRBs
  • Discovered new class of sources: Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients
  • Discovered persistent hard X-ray emission form magnetars
  • Completed the first hard X-ray survey of AGN, finding that many are heavily obscured
  • Detected gamma-ray emission from the GW170817 binary neutron star merger 1.7 s after the gravitional wave detection, making INTEGRAL among the first spacecraft to participate in successful multi-messenger detection

Archive

The HEASARC hosts the INTEGRAL data and catalogs.

Credits

INTEGRAL artist’s view courtesy of ESA

ESA INTEGRAL Science Data Center Guest Observer Facility

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