The spacecraft, payload and ground segment are performing nominally. Routine annealing #19 of the SPI detectors took place in June 2012.
The supplementary AO-10 Call for associated data-right proposals was released on 3 September 2012. All accepted AO-10 observations (except ToO) are open to the science community to propose for accessing data on sources contained in the FOV of the accepted observations. By the deadline of 28 September, ESA received 38 valid proposals, requesting data rights to 123 fields and for 453 targets in total (a single data right proposal can request observational data from multiple fields defined in observing proposals and multiple sources in each field). As expected, the large majority of requests are for galactic compact objects. The Time Allocation Committee will decide on the proposals by mid November 2012. The AO-10 cycle of observations begins on 1 January 2013. Preparations for the AO-11 are underway. Release of this new AO for observing proposals will be around March 2013.
The 9th INTEGRAL workshop "An INTEGRAL view of the high-energy sky (the first 10 years)" took place from 15 to 19 October 2012 in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. One of the scientific highlights presented at the workshop was the discovery of hard X-ray line emission from the 44Ti decay in SNR 1987 A by Sergei Grebenev et al. (Nature 490, 373, 2012).
During this week we celebrated the 10th launch anniversary of the INTEGRAL mission, on 17 October 2012.
The INTEGRAL mission is currently funded until 31 December 2014. A new request for mission extension to continue science operations by another two years is currently under review by ESA's advisory bodies.
Some recent scientific highlights include:
Hard X-ray line emission from the 44Ti decay in SNR 1987A (S. Grebenev et al., Nature 490, 373, 2012)
Separation of two contributions to the high energy emission of Cygnus X-1: Polarization measurements with INTEGRAL SPI (E. Jourdain et al., arXiv: 1210.4783, 2012)
Temporal and Spectral Evolution in X- and γ-Rays of Magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408 since its 2008 October Outburst: The Discovery of a Transient Hard Pulsed Component after its 2009 January Outburst (L. Kuiper et al. ApJ 748, 133, 2012)
When a Standard Candle Flickers (C. Wilson-Hodge et al., ApJ 727, 40, 2011)
Polarized high-energy emission from the black-hole candidate Cyg X-1 (P. Laurent et al. Science 332, 438, 2011)
Extended Hard X-Ray Emission from the Vela Pulsar Wind Nebula (F. Mattana et al., ApJ 743, 18, 2011)
IGR J17354-3255 as a candidate intermediate SFXT possibly associated with the transient MeV AGL J1734-3310, (Sguera, V. et al., MNRAS 417, 573, 2011)
Constraints on Lorentz Invariance Violation using integral/IBIS observations of GRB041219A (P. Laurent et al. PhRvD 83, 1301, 2011