ATTENTION! TO ALL SAX PIs: TO BE READ CAREFULLY!!!
 

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To: Principal Investigators of Target of Opportunity Programs
with BeppoSAX (AO3&4)
 
 

Due to budget cuts, BeppoSAX scientific operations have been reduced by
ASI.  The primary reductions impacting on the process of reviewing,
scheduling and performing TOO are as follows:

as of April 4:

- Mission Planners (previously available 24 hrs a day on call)
  will serve during office hours only (8 hrs a day Mon.-Fri.)
 
- Duty Scientist at the Science Operation Center will not cover the night
  shifts

as of April 15:

- Scientific Instruments will not be operated during Saturday & Sunday
nights
 

As a consequence TOO requests and scheduling shall be processed only
during office hours (Italian time) from Monday to Friday.
 
 
 

To: GCN/IAUC Community and GRBs scientists

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  634
SUBJECT: Budget cuts in BeppoSAX operations: impact on GRB observations
DATE:    00/04/17 18:29:31 GMT
FROM:    SAX Science Operations at IAS/CNR Frascati  <saxsci@ias.rm.cnr.it>

Due to budget cuts, BeppoSAX operations have been reduced by ASI as
follows:

as of April 4:

- Mission Planners (previously available 24 hrs a day on call)
  will serve during office hours only (8 hrs a day Mon.-Fri.)
 
- Duty Scientist at the Science Operation Center will not cover the night
  shifts

as of April 15:

- Scientific Instruments will not be operated during Saturday & Sunday
nights
 

As a consequence we estimate that:

-  THE NUMBER OF FAST GRB LOCALIZATIONS
   WILL BE REDUCED BY A FACTOR OF ~2.

- THE NUMBER OF FAST GRB FOLLOW-UP (i.e. AFTERGLOW OBSERVATIONS)
  WILL BE REDUCED BY A FACTOR OF ~ 3

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