Gamma-Ray Burst and Afterglow Astronomy 2001

This proceedings contains the papers from both the poster and oral presentations presented at the Workshop celebrating the first year of the HETE mission. The HETE mission, launched on 9 October 2000, has dramatically quickened the pace of GRB discoveries. By disseminating accurate burst coordinates to the astronomical community within a minute of the burst onset, HETE has made possible the panchromatic observation of the early, bright phases of the relativistic fireball expansion in several GRB afterglows. The scientific program covered the rapidly expanding range of GRB research, with roughly half of the sessions being devoted to prompt burst emission, and half to burst afterglows, both from observational and theoretical perspectives. In particular, 26 papers presented in the section on the HETE Satellite Mission comprise both a tutorial on the spacecraft and its instruments, as well as a summary of early scientific results. In addition, special sessions, such as the session devoted to soft gamma repeaters, were devoted to future missions and instrumentation.