The HEASARC is running nominally. If you are trying to download a lot of data, please consider using the AWS cloud copy of most HEASARC data. As an alternative to locally installing HEASoft, SciServer is an online platform which has the software installed and data available when you login.
The Mission Database File
Starting with Xselect v2.0 much of the mission-dependence has been incorporated into a simple ascii file called xselect.mdb. The default location for this file as distributed with the HEASOFT software is $HEADAS/../ftools/xselect/common/xselect.mdb, i.e.
>ls $HEADAS/../ftools/xselect/common/xselect.mdb /software/heasoft/headas/setup/../ftools/xselect/common/xselect.mdbwhere
$HEADAS is the environment variable which points to your HEASOFT software installation (as described in the HEASOFT installation instructions).
Subsections