Early Science Program

"Early science" is defined as any science enabled by Rubin for its community during the commissioning period, the data previews, the start of alert production, and the first year of survey operations, up to and including Data Release 1 (DR1).

This page summarizes "Rubin Observatory Plans for an Early Science Program", Rubin Tech Note 11 (RTN-011; DOI 10.5281/zenodo.14846372).

Commissioning

As the final stage of the Rubin construction project, commissioning began in 2024 with the Commissioning Camera, and proceeds in 2025 with the LSST Science Camera.

Go to the commissioning monthly status updates webpage.

Go to weekly technical updates about commissioning progress.

Survey strategy

The Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC) makes recommendations for early observations (e.g., prioritization of sky area coverage) with early science goals in mind. The acquisition of commissioning data is also driven by the need to verify and validate the requirements on all Rubin Observatory systems and meet the construction completeness criteria.

The planned surveys for system optimization and science validation include pilot multi-band surveys that are shallow but a wide-area; reach 1-2 year depths over 100 to 1,000 square degrees, potentially including a region with dense temporal sampling; reach 10-20 year depths in a small area, such as a deep drilling field.

See Section 2 of RTN-011 for details.

Data previews

A series of Data Previews (DP) based on simulated and commissioning data are planned to support the community as they develop their LSST analysis software and workflows, and to enable high-impact science as soon as possible.

Data Preview 0 (DP0) is based on simulated LSST-like data. It includes images and catalogs for Galactic and extragalactic objects (including variable stars and supernovae), and catalogs of moving objects.

Data Preview 1 (DP1) is anticipated to include, at minimum, processed visit images and source catalogs, and deep coadd images and object catalogs, based on early science-grade commissioning data. It will be based on data from the Commissioning Camera (ComCam), and become available by July 2025.

Data Preview 2 (DP2) will be a full reprocessing of all science-grade commissioning data, and will include processed visit images, coadded images, difference image analysis, and associated catalogs. It is expected to be based on data from the LSST Science Camera, and to become available by May 2026.

Data Release 1 (DR1) will be the first half-year of data from survey operations, and will include all types of data products. As processing is anticipated to take 6 months, DR1 is expected by Jan 2027.

See Section 3 of RTN-011 for details.

Alert production

The Rubin alert stream cannot run at full scale nor full fidelity prior to the first data release because alerts are the result of difference image analysis (DIA), which requires template images, which are derived from a data release.

In order to produce alerts on a limited scale in at least some sky regions, and to enable early science in the time-domain, the plan is as follows.

1. Generate templates using commissioning data from the LSST Science Camera in order to maximize the area covered by templates and available for Alert Production at the start of survey operations.
2. Generate additional templates incrementally, and immediately use them, during the first year of survey operations (when a sufficient number of images that pass quality cuts have been acquired).

Rubin aims to scale up alert production during commissioning with the aim of beginning routine Alert Production as soon as is feasible following System First Light. RTN-061 describes the criteria for sending the first Rubin alerts. Once begun, Alert Production will then proceed continuously into the full LSST survey. Alerts generated during commissioning may be produced with higher latency, and access to images and the Prompt Products Database (PPDB) may not be immediately available.

During routine LSST operations, prompt image data products, including raw images, processed single visit images (PVIs), difference images, and template images, will be made available no earlier than 80 hours following camera readout. During the first 6 months of the LSST, prompt PVIs and difference images may be released with higher latency as Rubin continues to understand data quality and scale up services.

See Section 4 of RTN-011 for details.

Questions?

Use the Support and Early Science categories in the Rubin Community Forum.