All-Sky Monitor on RXTE

As a research scientist at MIT, I participated in the construction, test, and operation of the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) aboard RXTE. The activities included: testing and characterizing the ASM; trouble shooting (e.g., high-voltage breakdowns); selecting flight detectors; testing the assembled ASM in a simulated space environment; integrating the ASM to the spacecraft and conducting end-to-end tests; and performing final pre-launch checks at the Kennedy Space Center. Moreover, I designed and coded a sophisticated planning software system for scheduling ASM observations. Over the past decade or so, the ASM has served as the eyes and ears of RXTE, by routinely monitoring more than 100 bright X-ray sources in the sky and providing alerts of transient events for Target-of-Opportunity observations with more sensitive instruments aboard. It is also responsible for the discovery of dozens of new X-ray sources. My research has been relying heavily on data from RXTE.