Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

What is Fermi?

General Dynamics C4 Systems - Artist Concept of Fermi The Universe is home to numerous exotic and beautiful phenomena, some of which can generate almost inconceivable amounts of energy. Supermassive black holes, merging neutron stars, streams of hot gas moving close to the speed of light ... these are but a few of the marvels that generate gamma-ray radiation, the most energetic form of radiation, billions of times more energetic than the type of light visible to our eyes. What is happening to produce this much energy? What happens to the surrounding environment near these phenomena? How will studying these energetic objects add to our understanding of the very nature of the Universe and how it behaves?

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly GLAST, is opening this high-energy world to exploration and helping us answer these questions. With Fermi, astronomers at long last have a superior tool to study how black holes, notorious for pulling matter in, can accelerate jets of gas outward at fantastic speeds. Physicists are able to study subatomic particles at energies far greater than those seen in ground-based particle accelerators. And cosmologists are gaining valuable information about the birth and early evolution of the Universe.

For this unique endeavor, one that brings together the astrophysics and particle physics communities, NASA has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Energy and institutions in France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Sweden. General Dynamics was chosen to build the spacecraft. Fermi was launched June 11, 2008 at 12:05 pm EDT.

Latest News

Jan 6, 2025

LAT Data Processing Restored

LAT data processing was restored over the weekend. It will take another day or more to finish processing the remaining backlog.

Jan 3, 2025

LAT Processing Delay

The LAT data processing pipeline is currently offline due to issues with its computing cluster. The satellite itself is functioning normally. At this time, we do not have an estimated timeline for repairs. The data server does not have any LAT data from after December 30, 2024, and there may be some gaps starting from December 25, 2024. Once the pipeline is restored, it will take several days to catch up and make the data available through the server and in the weekly files. We will provide an update by Monday or sooner if more information becomes available.

Dec 19, 2024

LAT Outage - Updated

On December 16, 2024, the LAT experienced a flight software misconfiguration, which put the instrument in an incorrect state. The instrument is safe and responding to commands during this pause in data collection. The spacecraft and GBM are operating normally. Reset and recovery efforts are underway, and we expect to resume data taking soon. Update: At around 19:00 UT on December 19, the LAT reset was completed, and data collection resumed. LAT has returned to normal operations. The resulting data outage lasted 3.3 days. We thank the LAT Operations Team and the Fermi Flight Operations Team for their hard work in returning LAT to science data collection.

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