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CGRO Timeline

Metadata Updated: March 13, 2026

The Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) was the second of NASA's Great Observatories. It was launched on April 5, 1991, from Space Shuttle Atlantis. It operated successfully for 9 years, and then was safely de-orbited and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on June 4, 2000. Compton had four instruments that covered an unprecedented six decades of the electromagnetic spectrum, from 30 keV to 30 GeV. In order of increasing spectral energy coverage, these instruments were the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE), the Imaging Compton Telescope (CompTel), and the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET). BATSE viewed the full sky, as a transient monitor and is thus not included in this database table of pointed telescope observations. Also, EGRET and CompTel had wide fields of view, about 30 degrees, and, as such, viewed multiple targets per X-axis pointing. OSSE could be slewed (about one axis) independently from the spacecraft, so it typically viewed 2 targets per spacecraft Z-axis orientation, or "viewing period." Viewing periods were typically two weeks long. This database table contains the CGRO observations for Cycles 1 through 9. The Cycle 1 observations for EGRET and COMPTEL were part of the All-Sky Survey with no defined targets. This database table was last updated in November 2001. The information contained therein was provided by the Compton Observatory Science Support Center (COSSC). Galactic coordinates were added to the table by the HEASARC in August 2005. Duplicate entries in the table were removed in June 2019. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date March 13, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date March 13, 2026
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/cgrotl
Data Last Modified 2026-03-09
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 4f5afda2-0f84-47ad-b261-4006cb828063
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL ivo://nasa.heasarc/cgrotl
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash fadd0bbf471d5d54e67b9c3ba13d8d961079c9eb04686692699aa6dbac92c475
Source Schema Version 1.1

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