The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Mission
Peter Michelson
Stanford University
peterm@stanford.edu
Additional authors: (none)
The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope is the next major high-energy observatory scheduled for launch in 2007. With two instruments, GLAST covers an enormous energy range: the Large Area Telescope (LAT), a pair-conversion telescope, provides coverage over from ~20 MeV to more than 300 GeV, while the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) provides sensitivity to transient phenomena in the band ~10 keV - 20 MeV. The LAT will provide an unprecedented capability for high-energy astrophysics, with a sensitivity more than 40 times that of EGRET. In this talk, the development status of the GLAST mission will be reviewed and highlights of the physics and astrophysics opportunities the GLAST mission will provide will be summarized.
