The High Energy Transient Explorer Mission (HETE-2)

The HETE-2 program is an international collaboration to help unravel the mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The primary goal of HETE-2 is to determine the origin and nature of cosmic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) by simultaneous observation of soft and medium X-rays and gamma-rays to provide precise localization of GRB's and identification of counterparts to these explosions. HETE-2 was launched on October 9, 2000 and declared fully operational on February 6, 2001.

HETE-2 carries three science instruments:

• a set of wide-field gamma-ray spectrometers (FREGATE)
• a wide-field X-ray monitor (WXM)
• a set of soft X-ray cameras (SXC)

HETE-2 Consortium Institutions:

• MIT Center for Space Research (PI Institution),
• RIKEN (Japan),
• Los Alamos National Laboratory,
• CESR (France),
• CNR-TESRE (Italy),
• UC-Berkeley,
• University of Chicago,
• UC-Santa Cruz, and
• Supaero