Information for grant applicants

This page is intended to provide support for UK researchers planning applications for science exploitation grants to analyse Rubin LSST data. It will be continually updated - the most recent update was on February 6th, 2025 - and any grant applicants not finding here information that they need for their applications are encouraged to contact the LSST:UK Project Leader (@Bob Mann ) or Project Scientist (@Graham Smith ).

Background information

• A collection of general background information about the Rubin LSST can be found at https://www.lsst.org/scientists.

• This webpage contains key numbers for the LSST system and survey, while updated versions of some of those numbers (e.g., expected point source limiting depths in the six bands) can be found in Table 2 of Bianco et al (2022).

• Information about the survey strategy can be found at Vera C. Rubin Observatory Survey Strategy, including access to the reports of the Survey Cadence and Optimisation Committee, the latest of which finalised the strategy for Y1 of the survey.

• A set of slides providing further background information about the Rubin LSST and about UK involvement in it can be found linked from Getting started with the Rubin Observatory and LSST:UK.

• The Rubin Observatory maintain a citable document on Zenodo to support grant applicants. It includes a summary description of LSST data products, releases, tools for supporting analysis, etc. The most detailed reference for the Rubin data products is the Data Product Definition Document (DPDD). Useful information regarding the first public release of LSSTCam alerts is also available in https://rtn-061.lsst.io/.

UK involvement in the Rubin LSST

LSST data products (except the alert stream) are proprietary and international (i.e., non-US/Chilean) researchers can only obtain LSST data rights through in-kind contributions made to the Rubin Observatory or for the benefit of the LSST community in the US. STFC is funding the LSST:UK Science Centre (LUSC) programme to earn data rights for UK researchers: a key point to mention in any exploitation grant application to STFC is that the LUSC programme does not fund any science exploitation, which must, therefore, be supported through exploitation grants sought by data rights holders and completely separate from the LUSC programme.

STFC and the US funding agencies have not yet signed the UK’s LSST Data Rights Agreement, but the in-kind contributions made through the LUSC programme have an agreed value equivalent to data rights for 300 PIs and 1200 Junior Associates; the definitions of these terms come the Rubin Data Policy, but, in the UK terms, faculty and those senior fellows who can lead grant applications are PIs and everyone else is a Junior Associate. This should be sufficient for everyone in the UK who needs data rights to have them, and UK data rights calls are held twice-yearly, so applicants can assume that anyone funded on their grant to analyse LSST data will be able to obtain the necessary data rights.

Rubin LSST Schedule

The Rubin Observatory is currently providing schedule updates in a variety of ways:

• Construction Project Status webpage: update on milestones, made automatically by project systems on a monthly basis, but with some latency

• Releases of Rubin Observatory Plans for an Early Science Program (RTN-011): the definitive reference for the Data Previews and Data Release 1, but is only updated periodically.

• Presentations - e.g. at the LSST@Europe6 conference, presentations from which are also available (in citable form) from Zenodo.

• Community forum updates on commissioning - was updated weekly during ComCam on-sky observing late 2024.

• Details of the scientifically useful data obtained with ComCam, and that will form Data Preview 1 (see below) are provided in https://sitcomtn-149.lsst.io/. It is quite long and technical, however it contains useful information about which fields were observed, and gives an idea of likely depth and data quality to expect in Data Preview 1.

The Construction Project Status page linked above presents a timeline for key events in final stages of the construction project, including the anticipated date of System First Light (also referred to as Rubin First Light) as no sooner than 04-Jul-2025, beginning of Science Verification observations no sooner than 15-Aug-2025, and Operations Readiness Review no sooner than 18-Sep-2025. These dates are as per the Construction Project Status update on December 10, 2024 update.

The current understanding of when data will be available to data rights holders is based on a synthesis of information that is available from several sources, and can be summarised as follows:

• Data Preview 1: will contain commissioning data from ComCam; released to data rights holders no sooner than June/July 2025

• [LSST Survey Start: 4-7 months after Rubin First Light - i.e., no sooner than November 2025]

• Data Preview 2: contains Science Verification data obtained with LSSTCam; released to data rights holders no sooner than 6 months after survey starts - i.e., no sooner than May 2026

• Data Release 1: contains first six months of survey data; released to data rights holders no sooner than 12 months after LSST Survey Start - i.e., no sooner than November 2026

Data Release 2 is expected six months after Data Release 1 (i.e., no sooner than May 2027), and subsequent data releases are expected annually thereafter.

Eric Bellm’s presentation at LSST@Europe6 provides a useful summary of what to expect and when regarding prompt data products. Key takeaways include:

• prompt data products include:

  • alerts available to the world via brokers (<=120sec after readout during Y1);

  • catalogs based on alerts available to data rights holders via prompt products database (<=24hrs after readout);

  • nightly pixel data available to data rights holders via Rubin Science Platform (>=80 hours after readout).

• “the most likely timescale for the first alerts are during science validation surveys”; “we do not expect to send alerts from ComCam data”. [indeed, ComCam-based alerts did not happen.]