INTEGRAL SPI Detector Failure
On 19 February, following exit from a perigee passage, there appears to have been a failure of another SPI Ge detector (#5). This follows the losses of Ge #2 in December 2003 and and Ge #17 in July 2004. The MOC and instrument teams are still investigating the anomaly, but the chance of any recovery is slight. The previous two failures both occurred some weeks after annealing suggesting a possible link, but this is unlikely to be the case here since the last annealing finished in Sept 2008. The failure means that from the original 19 SPI detectors arranged in a hexagonal pattern we have 16 remaining.

Last updated:Tuesday, 10-Mar-2009 17:34:53 EDT .