THE GAMMA-RAY BURST EXPERIMENT ONBOARD THE SROSS-C SATELLITE

We describe the scientific objectives, system design and in-flight per formance of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) experiment flown onboard the Ind ian SROSS-C satellite launched on 20 May 1992 by the ASLV launcher, fr om the Sriharikota Range, of the Indian Space Research Organisation. T he payload was operated from its first switch ''ON'' on 25 May 1992 ti ll the satellite re-entry on 14 July 1992. This paper gives details of the sensors consisting of CsI(Na) scintillators operating in the ener gy range 20-3000 keV, the associated processing electronics and differ ent modes of operation of the experiment. The performance of the exper iment in orbit and some interesting observations of event triggers are also presented.