The AGILE contribution to GRBs studies

AGILE is a gamma-ray mission planned to be operating as an Observatory during the period 2002-2005. Its baseline instrument is designed to detect gamma rays in the 30 MeV - 50 GeV band. AGILE's good sensitivity, very large field of view (similar to 1/5 of the whole sky), and excellent timing capability (similar to 1 ms deadtime) are ideal to study gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). AGILE is expected to detect similar to 10 GRBs per year at energies above 100 MeV. The Super-AGILE option might be able to localize GRBs within a few arcminutes and provide additional information in the hard X-ray band. A rapid alert program is an essential part of the scientific goals of the AGILE Observatory.