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arXiv · 2501.12970

The AGILE space mission: an Italian success story and its legacy for future space astronomy

Carlotta Pittori·Marco Tavani·Andrea Argan·Andrea Bulgarelli·Guido Barbiellini·Luca Salotti·Elisabetta Tommasi·Elisabetta Cavazzuti·Fabio D'Amico·Giovanno Valentini·Munzer Jahjah·Barbara Negri·Giovanni Annoni
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Abstract

AGILE (Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Immagini LEggero) has been a unique and hugely successful mission of Italian Space Agency (ASI), built and operated with the programmatic and technical support of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), several universities and Italian industries. During almost 17 years of observations in orbit (from April 23, 2007, to January 18, 2024), AGILE contributed to high-energy astrophysics and terrestrial physics with many discoveries and detections. Two co-aligned X- and gamma-ray detectors, a silicon-strip-based tracker, a wide field of view gamma-ray imager and the fast-reaction ground segment were the AGILE innovative solutions with respect to the previous generation of gamma-ray satellites. With the AGILE's re-entry, the in-orbit operational phase ends, but a new phase of scientific work on the satellite legacy data archive opens: AGILE may still hold future surprises.

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Carlotta Pittori, Marco Tavani, Andrea Argan, Andrea Bulgarelli, Guido Barbiellini, Luca Salotti, Elisabetta Tommasi, Elisabetta Cavazzuti, Fabio D'Amico, Giovanno Valentini, Munzer Jahjah, Barbara Negri, Giovanni Annoni. 2025-01-22. The AGILE space mission: an Italian success story and its legacy for future space astronomy. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.12970

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