Tthis email fron italian scientists:
Dear colleague,
this message is to inform you about current plans to shut-down BeppoSAX by April 30 this year,
notwithstanding the excellent status and prospects of the mission, and to solicit, if you agree, a statement of help
and support for the extension of BeppoSAX life for a further year.
All instruments and subsystems are performing satisfactorily and are stable. The satellite has been operated for 4
years in 1 gyro mode and it is ready to be operated in gyroless mode. This mode has been successfully tested on
ground and on-board, and its performances are expected to be comparable to the previous mode. The orbital
decay estimates predict that the critical altitude of 450 km will not be crossed before April 2002 (worst case).
BeppoSAX is at present and for at least the next year the only satellite able to observe extragalactic sources at
hard X-rays and to follow promptly and systematically GRB evolution.
The budget required to operate BeppoSAX for another year is about 1% of the annual budget of the Italian
Space Agency (ASI).
For these reasons the BSAX Steering Committee has requested to ASI, in November 2000, the extension of
BSAX operations from April 2001 to May 2002, planning to call for an AO5 completely open to the
International community.
(The proposal submitted to ASI, including the scientific case is available at:
www.ias.rm.cnr.it/sax/AO5/AO5Docs.html)
If you think that a suppression of BeppoSAX will impact negatively on the development of High Energy
Astronomy in the years 2001-2002 we ask you to write a few lines that can be used to support actions causing
ASI to recede from the decision.
A statement on the impact of SAX results on the recent development of High Energy Astrophysics and a
statement on expectations from further BeppoSAX results in your field of interest, could make your mail
particularly effective.
Please be aware that we will make a public use of the previous statements (such as circulating or putting in a web
site).
We are sending this message to various mailing lists and ask every colleague to further circulate. We apologize if
you receive it more than once.
Please, if you agree, send your message as an e-mail to the address
savesax@tesre.bo.cnr.it or use the Web
form provided at http://sax.ifctr.mi.cnr.it/Savesax-2001
For the BeppoSAX Team:
L. Scarsi (Chairman of the Steering Commitee)
L. Piro (Mission Scientist)
For the BeppoSAX Time Allocation Committee:
L. Maraschi (Chairperson of the TAC)
