Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-10

Science has an unprecedented opportunity to explore astronomical and astrophysical phenomena through the complementary capabilities of multiple groundbreaking survey facilities. These include the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) at the Vera C. Reuben observatory, neutrino detectors like IceCube, and the gravitational wave detecting network formed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and related instruments in Europe and Japan. Modern surveys now provide a wealth of real-time discoveries from electromagnetic, gravitational wave and neutrino detectors, disseminated via high-throughput streaming services. These petabyte-scale survey data products are useful only if downstream researchers can characterize the discoveries. To enable the scientific community to realize the full scientific potential of these surveys, the project team has produced the Target and Observation Manager (TOM) Toolkit, which is web-based cyberinfrastructure that enables communities of scientists to analyze data from multiple sources. The toolkit further enables scientists to coordinate follow-up observations that are necessary to fully characterize the discoveries. Building on prior work, this project improves the usability and capabilities of the TOM Toolkit by upgrading it to support the increased scale needed to handle interactions with LSST data sources; by improving toolkit data analysis pipelines using modern machine learning methods; and by streamlining deployments on commercial clouds and NSF-funded computing systems. The project will support and grow the toolkit’s professional and citizen science user community through updated documentation, tutorials, and community support. In order to achieve the wealth of science that is possible through the current and future generations of astronomical and astrophysical survey instruments, researchers need to collate and analyze information rapidly, at scale, and continuously. Since survey data alone are often insufficient to fully understand the underlying physics, researchers need to orchestrate follow-up observations in a timely manner using a range of telescope facilities. This project provides science teams with modern, scalable, customizable, and extensible cyberinfrastructure to manage their data and analysis, with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to key external services such as alert brokers, data archives and telescope facilities. This project delivers a software framework designed to make it easy for science users to create and customize a database-driven web application to orchestrate their research program. The package provides a fully functional Django-based web application with browser-based data exploration and visualization tools to enable a wide range of science, plus a range of interfaces to essential external services. This project extends the core package to integrate user data analysis workflows and advanced data analysis tools such as Large Language Models. The project will add APIs to enable researchers to create and manage citizen science programs through the Zooniverse platform. This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Physics at the Information Frontier Program within the Physics Section of the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-01

The U.S. has been at the forefront of new technologies that have given us new ways to study objects in space that change with time. Software can alert us to new discoveries, but the discovery data alone aren't enough for us to fully understand what's going on. Additional observations are required, often from several different telescopes. These follow-up observations are often needed at short notice, to help us to understand objects that are changing quickly. This project will enable astronomers to contact telescopes and ask for the observations they need using software. This will make it possible to coordinate follow-up observations across optical, infrared and radio telescopes. Astronomers will also be able to observe X-ray and UV signals using the Swift Space Telescope. The project will also foster collaborations between observatories and astronomers. The investigators will organize a program of workshops and collaborative visits. By sharing experience and tools, they will reduce duplication of effort, and make tools developed by different teams work together. To characterize discoveries from gravitational wave, neutrino and electromagnetic Time Domain and Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (TD/MMA) surveys, it is essential to coordinate timely follow-up observations across the electromagnetic spectrum from many different ground-and space-based telescopes. The Astronomical Event Observatories Network (AEON) has demonstrated how quite different telescope facilities can collaborate to enable observation requests to be submitted through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) with flexible modes of scheduling. This enables the science community to directly request observations through software, streamlining observing programs, which can then be automated. This has proven to enable highly efficient and flexible observations that are critical to performing timely follow-up of TD/MMA targets. Historically, most observatories have developed their operating software independently, leading to a range of platforms customized for each facility. Instead, this project will create a open-source software library that can submit observations to a wide range of AEON-compatible facilities. As a stand-alone library, this code can then be used within any community-developed platform or software. In addition to facilities that are already in AEON (Las Cumbres, SOAR, Gemini), this project, led by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, will extend the new library to enable observations at the Keck Observatories, the Skynet telescope network and facilities operated by the National Radio Astronomical Observatory. The project will host regular Observatories Forum workshops, bringing together observatory staff and science community developers to share experience and tools, and fostering interoperability between platforms. It will also enable staff from different observatories to collaborate directly by creating a Visiting Developers program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.