INTEGRAL SPI detector anomaly

An anomaly on SPI Ge Detector #1 occurred on May 27. The failure occurred 31 hours after radiation belt exit (at an altitude of 158000 km) and approximately 6 weeks after the end of the last annealing. The MOC and SPI teams are still investigating the anomaly, but the chance of any recovery is slight.

Four Germanium detectors out of 19 have failed, resulting in a decrease of the scientific performance by 20%. Detector #2 failed on 12/06/2003; detector #17 on 07/17/2004; detector #5 on 02/19/2009 and detector #1 on 05/27/2010.

Last updated:Monday, 07-Jun-2010 10:37:26 EDT .