TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 9902 SUBJECT: GRB 090823: Swift XRT confirmation of the X-ray afterglow DATE: 09/09/08 17:33:53 GMT FROM: Dirk Grupe at PSU/Swift-XRT D. Grupe (PSU) reports on behalf of the Swift XRT team: Swift has observed the field of IPN burst GRB090823 (Cummings et al. GCN Circ. 9835) twice after the initial 4.7 ks observation on 2009-08-24 (Grupe et al., GCN Circ. 9840) for 9.5 ks on 2009-08-27 and 7.5 ks on 2009-09-05. During the 2009-08-27 observation the X-ray source was clearly detected again at a level of (2.3+/-0.6)e-3 counts s-1 (about 1.1e-13 ergs s-1 cm-2), roughly half of the flux during the first observation. During the 2009-09-05 observation however, the X-ray source is definitely gone and we can only derive a 3-sigma upper limit at a level of 1.9e-3 counts s-1 (9.4e-14 ergs s-1 cm-2). We can confirm that the source listed in GCN circ. 9840 is the X-ray afterglow of GRB 090823.