TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 15279 SUBJECT: Swift Operations in the event of a US Government shutdown DATE: 13/10/01 02:55:47 GMT FROM: Jamie A. Kennea at PSU/Swift-XRT J. A. Kennea (PSU) on behalf of the Swift Science Operations Team As Swift's Mission Operations Center (MOC) is located at Penn State, rather than a NASA facility, it will remain fully staffed and operational in the event of a US Government shutdown. However, a shutdown may affect the visibility of NASA-based websites, such as the Swift Science Data Center (SDC) and the GCN, to the outside world (including the Swift MOC). If the SDC and GCN are down, our ability to report on accurate localization of burst afterglows and evolution of burst light-curves will likely be compromised. Also our partner SDC sites in the UK and Italy will likely not receive new Swift data if the NASA SDC is not available. If GCN becomes unavailable, we have put in place a backup webpage that hosts the first response GCN Circulars for new Swift bursts (i.e. those reporting the initial detection). It can be found at this URL: http://www.swift.psu.edu/gcn Since we cannot disseminate GCN Notices or Circulars if the GCN site goes off-line, interested parties are urged to check this site periodically during any US Government shutdown. Also, the Swift iPhone/iPad app, found here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swift-explorer/id465669299?mt=8 can be used to be alerted when a new GRB is detected through push notifications. Swift's TOO website will remain online during any shutdown and our capability to perform TOO uploads is not expected to be affected during any shutdown.