CAMELOT: Cubesats Applied for MEasuring and LOcalising Transients - Mission Overview and In-Orbit Demonstration

We will present the results of our feasibility study, and the progress towards building the in-orbit demonstration satellite, for the CAMELOT (Cubesats Applied for MEasuring and LOcalising Transients) mission, which will be a fleet of nano-satellites designed to perform an all-sky monitoring and timing based localisation of gamma-ray transients, some of which are the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves (GW) detected by LIGO/Virgo. CAMELOT will measure the time difference between the arrival of the signal at the different satellites and determine the location of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the sky by triangulation. The satellites will downlink the data about the detected transients within minutes. LIGO/Virgo have a modest localisation accuracy, limiting our knowledge about the events that produce GWs. Simultaneous detections of GWs and GRBs, with accurately measured locations, will therefore be important for enabling quick follow up observations, providing valuable multi-messenger information about these astrophysically important phenomena. They will also allow us to identify sub-threshold GW events, extending the sensitivity of LIGO/Virgo.

Currently, we are in the construction phase for a demonstration mission, which will validate the design of the detector system, as well as the time-stamping electronics, onboard processing, data handling and analysis. We will describe the detector development and testing on high-altitude balloon flights. We will also present the design of the in-orbit demonstration mission, which is scheduled to take place in the end of 2020.
The CAMELOT mission provides ample potential for international collaboration and we are communicating and cooperating with teams in several other countries.