CubeSat payload processing pipeline development for gamma-ray burst detection

The Gamma-ray Investigation of the Full Transient Sky (GIFTS) is a 6U CubeSat currently under development that is designed for the onboard detection and localization of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), comprising six detectors and a dedicated payload board for control and data processing operations. This work is focused on the development of a GIFTS onboard payload pipeline that can reliably detect and localize the expected GRBs according to prior simulations, using data that feature representative detector rates and varieties of bursts. The generation of simulated catalogs has been established as a mechanism for developing robust processing pipelines prior to mission launch, where existing public GRB catalogs can provide a rich source of data for this activity. The Fermi-GBM GRB catalog has been used to construct a simulated GIFTS catalog containing detector readouts generated from events observed by counterpart GBM detectors, based on data products for 3405 GRBs detected by GBM between July 2008 and September 2024. Baseline payload pipeline detection and localization outputs are presented following an iterative development and evaluation process, which operates on inputs from this simulated catalog. The post-launch GIFTS mission catalog generated by the ground-based pipeline is also proposed, including the distribution of exemplar GRB products using the simulated catalog, and the development of a GIFTS Gamma-ray Data Tools package for catalog analysis.