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Swift support

Helpdesk

Questions about Swift? Try our guide to Swift or the guide to data processing and analysis. If these don't solve your problem, please feel free to e-mail us at swifthelp@le.ac.uk.

List of acronyms and abbreviations

We are located in the Department of Physics & Astronomy , at the University of Leicester (directions).

Guest Investigator Program

The Swift Guest Investigator Program is an annual announcement of opportunity soliciting proposals from the community for research relevant to the Swift mission. The GI programs begin at the start of each April and last for approximately 12 months (Cycle 21 runs from 1st April 2025 until 31st March 2026). Observing time is available for scientists at both US and non-US institutions, although only those Principal Investigators at US institutions will be eligible for funding from NASA. No funding is provided for the fill-in category.

GI Cycle 21: Deadline passed

Swift provides an opportunity for simultaneous optical to hard X-ray observations of targets, allowing broad-band analysis. The X-ray Telescope is specifically designed to choose the best operating mode for the X-ray flux of the object in question.

As initiated several years ago, there will be dual anonymous peer review for Cycle 21. See https://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/proposals/swiftgi.html for more details.

There is again a Key Projects category. Such projects are intended to provide significant advances in Swift science, and require a very strong justification. In these cases, 6 pages are allowed for the scientific justification (4 pages only are allowed for all other proposals).

Cycle 21 again includes the option to submit a single proposal for combined observing programs between Swift and XMM-Newton, Chandra, INTEGRAL, NRAO (VLA, GBT and VLBA), NuSTAR and NICER - and, new for this cycle, IXPE. More details are available on the main GI page. Coordinated observations with LCO are encouraged, though these will require separate proposals to both facilities; that is, LCO time CANNOT be awarded directly though the Swift GI program.

New Cycle 21 also introduces the concept of "Urgency 0", or "Immediate" ToOs, for those sources which require very rapid (quicker than the 4 hour turnaround which "Urgency 1" offers) response times. In these cases, the spacecraft will respond autonomously, without human intervention, allowing the observations to begin within minutes of the request being received. Note such proposals must be strongly scientifically justified, and, if accepted, the ToOs can then only be submitted via the Swift ToO API.

New There is also the possibility to request downlink of BAT event mode data via the GUANO (Gamma-Ray Urgent Archiver for Novel Opportunities; Tohuvavohu et al., 2020) system. See https://www.swift.psu.edu/guano/ for a list of current programmes and related triggers. Interested parties are strongly advised to contact the Swift team to discuss feasibility prior to proposal submission.

In this cycle, there will again be up to 2 Ms available for non-ToO targets, 1 Ms for ToOs, 1 Ms for large programs and 1 Ms for fill-in targets. ToOs for GRBs detected with instruments other than Swift (e.g., MAXI, Fermi, IPN) are included in this time.

Requests for fill-in observations cannot be time-constrained (e.g. coordinated with ground- or space-based facilities), although both ToOs and non-ToOs may be, provided the window for the observation exceeds 3 hours. There is no restriction on the maximum number of time-constrained observations permitted, and no funding is provided for these proposals.

The duration of an observation (ie a single visit to a target) is limited to between 0.5 and 40 ks (note the minimum observation length has been decreased for Cycle 21), although several observations may be requested. No single pointing of longer than 1.8 ks will be performed, however.

Proposals must be submitted through the Astrophysics Research Knowledgebase/Remote Proposal System (ARK/RPS) (https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ark/rps/) for which you need an account. The page for submission is https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ark/swiftrps/form.html (once you are logged in). There are instructions regarding the steps required.

See the NASA page for more details (FAQs), or contact the Leicester Swift help-desk.

List of Cycle 20 (2024-2025) accepted targets

new List of Cycle 21 (2025-2026) accepted targets new

Previous Cycles

Cycle 20 (2024-2025)
Cycle 19 (2023-2024)
Cycle 18 (2022-2023)
Cycle 17 (2021-2022)
Cycle 16 (2020-2021)
Cycle 15 (2019-2020)
Cycle 14 (2018-2019)
Cycle 13 (2017-2018)
Cycle 12 (2016-2017)
Cycle 11 (2015-2016)
Cycle 10 (2014-2015)
Cycle 9 (2013-2014)
Cycle 8 (2012-2013)