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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 12 runs from 1st April 2016 until 31st March 2017). 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.

Cycle 12 results published

GI Cycle 12 - CLOSED

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.

New for Cycle 12 are the Swift Key Projects. This is a new proposal category aimed at addressing high-impact scientific questions, covering both new Swift projects and theoretical investigations; the plans for such projects can last one or two years.

Cycle 12 again includes the option to submit a single proposal for combined observing programs between Swift and XMM-Newton (AO-15), Chandra, INTEGRAL (AO-14) or NRAO (VLA, GBT and VLBA). More details are available on the main GI page.

In this cycle, there will 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) 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. Up to 500 time-constrained observations will be accepted during this cycle.

The duration of an observation is limited to between 1 and 40 ks, although several observations may be requested.

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

List of Cycle 11 (2015-2016) accepted targets