GCN Circular 31668

After several weeks of testing, on 3 March 2022 Swift re-enabled autonomous slewing, both to on-board gamma-ray burst triggers, as well as uplinked target-of-opportunity requests. Thus, the observatory has now returned to full science operation.

Target-of-opportunity requests are now being accepted at all urgency levels. However, as in the past, we encourage proposers to request high (< 24 hours response) and highest (< 4 hours response) priority observations only when strongly scientifically motivated.

Gamma-ray burst response, including narrow field follow-up and alert notifications, should now proceed in the same manner as pre-anomaly (with increased slew times due to the failed wheel).

If you have further questions, please feel free to reach out to the Swift PI, Brad Cenko, at brad.cenko@nasa.gov.