* Astronomy

Title: A-STAR: The All-Sky Transient Astrophysics Reporter
Authors: J. P. Osborne, P. O'Brien, P. Evans, G. W. Fraser, A. Martindale, J.-L. Atteia, B. Cordier, S. Mereghetti

The small mission A-STAR (All-Sky Transient Astrophysics Reporter) aims to locate the X-ray counterparts to ALIGO and other gravitational wave detector sources, to study the poorly-understood low luminosity gamma-ray bursts, and to find a wide variety of transient high-energy source types, A-STAR will survey the entire available sky twice per 24 hours. The payload consists of a coded mask instrument, Owl, operating in the novel low energy band 4-150 keV, and a sensitive wide-field focussing soft X-ray instrument, Lobster, working over 0.15-5 keV. A-STAR will trigger on ~100 GRBs/yr, rapidly distributing their locations.

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