Astronomy & Astrophysics

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Issue		A&A Volume 411, Number 1, November III 2003 Special letters issue on: first science with integral
Page(s)		L25 - L29
Section		Letters
DOI		10.1051/0004-6361:20031306

A&A 411, L25-L29 (2003)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20031306

Letter

INTEGRAL timing and localization performance

R. Walter^{1, 2}, P. Favre^{1, 2}, P. Dubath^{1, 2}, A. Domingo³, G. Gienger⁴, W. Hermsen⁵, J. Pineiro⁴, L. Kuiper⁵, M. Schmidt⁴, G. Skinner⁶, M. Tuttlebee⁴, G. Ziegler⁴ and T. J.-L. Courvoisier^{1, 2}

¹ INTEGRAL Science Data Centre, Chemin d'Écogia 16, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
² Observatoire de Genève, Chemin des Maillettes 51, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
³ Laboratorio de Astrofísica Espacial y Física Fundamental, PO Box 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain
⁴ European Space Operation Center, Robert-Bosch-Str. 5, 64293 Darmstadt, Germany
⁵ SRON National Institute for Space Research, Sorbonnelaan 2, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands
⁶ Centre d'Étude Spatiale des Rayonnements, 9 avenue du Colonel Roche, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4, France

(Received 15 July 2003 / Accepted 26 August 2003)

Abstract
In this letter we report on the accuracy of the attitude, misalignment, orbit and time correlation which are used to perform scientific analyses of the INTEGRAL data. The boresight attitude during science pointings has an accuracy of 3 arcsec. At the center of the field, the misalignments have been calibrated leading to a location accuracy of 4 to 40 arcsec for the different instruments. The spacecraft position is known within 10 m. The relative timing between instruments could be reconstructed within 10 $\mu{\rm s}$ and the absolute timing within 40 $\mu{\rm s}$ .

Key words: instrumentation: miscellaneous -- methods: data analysis -- gamma rays: observations -- space vehicles

Offprint request: R. Walter, Roland.Walter@obs.unige.ch

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