TO: All GCN sites DT: 26 May 00 RE: BATSE and COMPTEL turned off tonight at 20:00 EDT CGRO Flight Operations will turn off the science instruments on GRO at UT midnight tonight (26 May 00 UT; i.e. 8pm EDT). The BATSE and COMPTEL instruments will no longer be in a mode to detect GRBs. BATSE will no longer be producing triggers, so there will be no more GCN/BATSE Notices (all types: Original, Final, MAXBC, LOCBURST, and lightcurves). COMPTEL will no longer be able produce COMPTEL Notices (Original or Updated). With all 4 instruments turned off, the Flight Ops team will do a series of test and, later, small burns to decrease the orbit altitude. Then on Jun 4 the final main burn will occur to bring the s/c into the Pacific ocean. It is the end of an extremely productive 9-year mission and the end of a set of still very capable scientific instruments. We are honored to have been able to participate and we will miss its presence. The failure of the on-board tape recorders was genisis to GCN (then called BACODINE). GCN continues to live on with contributions from the current constellation of missions: BeppoSAX, RXTE, ALEXIS, Wind-KONUS, NEAR, and the IPN; and with the future missions: HETE2, INTEGRAL, and Swift. All Notices types (except GRO), distribution methods, and filtering to the set of GCN sites will continue normally without interruption -- there will be no operational difference to the sites. There is nothing you have to do in your operations before, during, or after the shutdown of the GRO instruments. Sincerely, Scott Scott Barthelmy NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD 20771 PHONE: 301-286-3106 (work) FAX: 301-286-1684 (1st choice, -1682 2nd choice) EMAIL: scott@lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov PAGER: 1-800-SKY-PAGE, PIN 2618712 (by phone, voice menu/instructions) PAGER: 2618712@skymail.com (by email, 240 characters max per message) WEB: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn