Updates from the Director’s Office

By Ben Carollo and Mercedes López-Morales

As we have for 44 years, STScI continues to engage the astronomical community and support groundbreaking astrophysics. In the last few months, we celebrated Hubble’s 35th anniversary and Webb’s third anniversary, and both missions continue to be in extremely high demand while producing exceptional science. Looking to the future, Roman is more than 90% complete and set for launch next year, and we are excited to see such a large showing of support for the Habitable Worlds Observatory at this summer’s conference. We are also excited about the multi-mission Rocky Worlds Director’s Discretionary program, which took its first observations in July. This program is aimed at searching for evidence of atmospheres on rocky exoplanets with Webb and characterizing the stellar UV properties with Hubble. 

With an eye toward the future, STScI has been working to prioritize our work to further support cross-mission alignment, promote operational efficiencies, and enable knowledge sharing internally and externally. This includes exploring how to harness emerging technologies to advance our work, including generative AI tools. To that end, we have established an internal task force to develop a strategy for employing generative AI at the institute, enhancing and streamlining our functional activities while preserving integrity and confidentiality.

As you are aware, we are still waiting for clarity about federal funding levels for next year, and we still have a long way to go before understanding the allocations as they relate to our work. Astronomy has long enjoyed non-partisan support for its amazing contributions to science. The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) leadership team continues to work with our stakeholders and respond to decision-makers throughout the budget process, providing information about how our facilities, and the science that comes from them, contribute to local, regional, national, and international interests. STScI provided the community with information about potential impacts for our missions at the summer AAS meeting. Our goal is to continue to be a cornerstone of the astrophysics community and enable exploration of the universe, and we remain excited for STScI’s future.

We hope you enjoy these articles, and we look forward to continuing to partner with all of you to explore the universe.

Hubble Space Telescope at STScI

By Julia Roman-Duval, Marc Rafelski, Helmut Jenkner, and John MacKenty

NASA conducts a Senior Review every three years for Astrophysics missions in their extended phase of operations to inform programmatic and budgetary direction for the next five fiscal years. Hubble was part of the 2025 process, with the Hubble team at STScI and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) presenting to the Review Panel in February. The mission was ranked highly in the final report. 

Hubble is fully transitioned to reduced gyro mode (RGM), where only one gyro is used in the pointing control loop for slewing and guiding. A second gyro is powered up as a backup, resulting in a greater than 90% probability of having at least one functional gyro in 2030. RGM performance is significantly better than expected with ~55% scheduling efficiency (Earth occultations limit the maximum scheduling efficiency to ~60%). RGM incurs no changes to pointing stability and performance. Hubble has not sustained any unplanned safe mode events since June 2024.

Hubble saw another record number of peer-reviewed publications in 2024, with 1,073 papers published. More details can be found in Hubble publication metrics and STScI bibliography search pages.

Cycle 33 attracted 833 proposals for about 18,500 orbits (2,700 GO orbits will be available in Cycle 33). Notifications were sent on July 18.

Hubble Advanced Spectroscopic Products (HASP) are available within the MAST Hubble search form. HASP products (described in this document) include co-added and abutted spectra at the visit and program levels. The updated Hubble Spectroscopic Legacy Archive (HSLA) will include spectra co-added and abutted across programs at the target level, along with target classification. The updated HSLA is on track to be released in October.

Major updates to the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) geometric distortion and walk corrections are complete, and improve the wavelength calibration by a factor of two on average (from 3 pixels to 1.5 pixels). The improvement can be significantly larger locally near the detectors’ edges. Find more information about this significant calibration improvement through the July STScI Analysis Newsletter (STAN).

The recently published ULLYSES survey paper provides a description of the goals, design, and initial results of this large Hubble Director’s Discretionary program initiated in 2020. So far, the ULLYSES library has generated over 40 peer-reviewed publications by the community. ULLYSES targets and data can be searched and queried at the ULLYSES MAST search form (HLSPs only), or via the MAST portal following these instructions (HLSPs and contributing datasets).

The Space Telescope User Committee (STUC) met in early June. Presentations are available on the STUC webpage.

Read ongoing Hubble news updates.

James Webb Space Telescope at STScI

By Tom Brown, Macarena Garcia Marin, Jeff Valenti, and David Hunter

The science continues to be spectacular and the observing demand is very high.

Webb is producing transformational science across the entire field of astrophysics and will continue to do so for at least 20 years. While the public appreciates Webb’s amazing images, the scientific community is using the mission’s complex and powerful instruments to pursue a science program that is overwhelmingly dominated by spectroscopic investigations. There was a record response to the Cycle 4 proposal call, with 2,377 proposals requesting 78,000 hours from investigators in 47 states and the broader international community. Oversubscription remains high, at 9:1, despite a large increase in the available observing pool from 5,500 to 8,500 hours. Over 1,200 peer-reviewed papers were published through the end of 2024, with the number steeply climbing each year. To facilitate new avenues of exploration, STScI is hosting a two-week summer school from August 4 to 15, focused on high-redshift transients, and splitting the agenda between science and techniques.

Operational performance is superb and we are making it better.

The planning and scheduling team is keeping the observatory schedule highly efficient, with 81% of the time on source, while meeting the constraint of pointing in the micrometeroid avoidance zone less than 20% of the time. When micrometeoroid impacts do occur, innovative mirror corrections can largely mitigate the associated degradation. These correction techniques mean that there is a greater than 80% probability that the wavefront error will surpass requirements through 2045. The mirror is proving to be more stable than expected, enabling a lower cadence of wavefront sensing, which has enabled us to return 80 hours to the science program each year. Improvements in the guide star catalog have dramatically increased the acquisition success in crowded fields.

We are introducing new science capabilities and improving science data processing.

New for Cycle 5, the NIRCam grism time-series template has a new short-wavelength spectroscopy option that will help break degeneracies in exoplanet atmosphere models. We are also offering MIRI wide-field slitless spectroscopy as a prime mode, and are working toward implementing parallel usage. More broadly, ongoing improvements to the calibration pipeline are lowering the bar for the scientific analysis of Webb data, including faster execution time, lower memory usage, updated reference data, fixes to the world coordinate system, tools for 1/f noise, and improvements to spectral extraction, cosmic-ray flagging, and background subtraction. Observer satisfaction with these improvements is tracked via user surveys at conferences and associated with observations. The March meeting of the JWST Users Committee explored the evolution of the mission and confirmed broad satisfaction with mission support.

Find more Webb news, events and articles, and sign up for JWST Observer News.

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at STScI

By Kristen McQuinn and Karoline Gilbert

STScI is focused on supporting the astronomical community as Roman approaches the release of its first Call for Proposals, anticipated this November. Roman is on track to be ready to launch in October 2026.

The outcome of science community input to Roman’s Observing Program.

The Roman Observations Time Allocation Committee carefully considered multiple implementation options for Roman's Core Community Surveys, provided by the Core Community Survey Definition Committees, and has released their recommendations for the specific implementation for each survey. STScI supported the work of the committees throughout the process, continues to support the work of the Galactic Plane General Astrophysics Survey Definition Committee, and is in the process of implementing the Core Community Surveys. Learn more in the STScI newsletter article that summarizes the process and recommendations.

Opportunity to suggest targets for Roman’s First Look Observations.

The Roman Project issued a Call for Community Input on the First Look Observations, which will be scheduled in the latter stages of Roman’s commissioning. Those observations should showcase key capabilities of the Wide Field Instrument and provide compelling demonstrations of its observing modes. The deadline for submitting input is August 11.

Stay up-to-date about Roman.

STScI and Roman's Science Support Center at IPAC jointly launched @NancyRomanSci social media accounts on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, and X. These accounts provide additional ways for scientists to stay informed and learn about opportunities to engage with Roman. Other ways to keep up to date and get involved are detailed on STScI's Take Part in the Mission web page.

Dive deep into Roman’s capabilities and the available resources for scientists.

The Roman User Documentation (RDox) continues to be actively developed, with two releases of new and updated content over the first six months of 2025, and three more releases planned in advance of Roman's first Call for Proposals. RDox currently includes a Wide Field Instrument User Guide, Roman Data Handbook, Simulation Tools Handbook, and Roman APT User Guide. Summaries of the content of new RDox releases are included in STScI's Roman Science Operations Center quarterly newsletter.

STScI is preparing the release of the Roman Research Nexus.

STScI continues development on the Roman Research Nexus, a cloud-based science platform that will provide easy access to Roman's petabyte-scale datasets that will immediately be made public and are exclusively non-proprietary. The Nexus will provide tutorial Jupyter notebooks and example workflows for data simulation, exploration and analysis; computing resources for individuals and teams; and a compute environment with preinstalled software and the ability to upload your own. In the past six months, significant progress was made to add real-time collaboration functionalities, including the ability to simultaneously edit files. STScI held our first two community workshops about using the Nexus, and we expect to release it for broad community use in the fall.

Learn about the science anticipated from Roman’s extensive maps of the sky.

STScI organized and hosted the symposium “Cosmic Cartography with Roman: Advances in Galaxy Structures, Distributions, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy” from July 14 to 18. The event explored the novel research that is possible only with large cosmic surveys and simulations, and discussed how the community will be able to optimize scientific output with Roman in the future through invited and contributed talks, posters, and discussion panels. You may view recorded talks by clicking “webcast” on the event page.

Stay tuned for additional learning opportunities in preparation for Roman's first Call for Proposals, including a webinar series starting early this fall.

Find more Roman news, events, articles, and press coverage.

Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) at STScI

By Jason Tumlinson and Janice Lee

STScI’s Community Missions Office (CMO) staff recently led the community release of draft science cases to help shape the Habitable Worlds Observatory’s top-level science goals, instrument needs, and mission architecture. The 60 Science Case Development Documents (SCDDs) were written by members of the four HWO Science Working Groups, which have leadership and involvement from STScI staff. They span a wide range of topics, and reflect the mission’s exciting scientific potential to usher in a new era of astrophysics discovery and address one of humanity's oldest questions: Are we alone?

The broader community is invited to join the cases as endorsers through the HWO Science Case Portal by August 15.

NASA recently announced the formation of the Community Science and Instrument Team (CSIT). This committee is charged with serving as liaisons to the broader community, leading scientific investigations to help set science objectives and requirements, analyzing instrument concepts and providing scientific perspectives on technology developments. The membership includes three STScI staff members, Janice Lee, Laurent Pueyo, and Jason Tumlinson.

CMO staff led the organization of the symposium “Towards the Habitable Worlds Observatory: Visionary Science and Transformational Technology” hosted July 28 to 31. The overwhelming interest in this inaugural open community event has been deeply encouraging. Over 500 abstracts were received and over 100 talks were confirmed. Event materials are listed at the bottom of the event page.

Learn more about how to get involved in HWO.

Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST)

By Susan Mullally and Jonathan Hargis

Improving workflows for petabyte-scale compute using science platforms.

To meet the demands of petabyte-scale data from current and future survey missions, MAST is actively revamping the architecture of its infrastructure to support scalable solutions for data and catalog access. As mission data volumes from TESS and Webb continue to grow and Roman approaches launch, MAST is investing in robust technologies to keep pace. This includes migrating more data to the cloud, accelerating data transfer pipelines, and developing new services built on parallelized databases such as Greenplum. As part of this broader strategy, MAST continues to improve systems to help users take advantage of data available in the cloud. The TIKE science platform now offers collaborative cloud-based analysis, allowing users to form teams through their myST accounts to share code and data in real time. Users can work with astronomical data directly in the cloud, reducing the need to download large files, and plans are underway to deploy a Dask Gateway for large-scale parallel computing that will allow users to speed up their workflows.

Making community datasets available.  

MAST’s data holdings also continue to grow rapidly, with the addition of several major Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Legacy Archive components, including eBOSS, MaNGA, and APOGEE. These data sets, which are available through the MAST Portal, open up new opportunities for multi-mission science. They join a growing suite of newly ingested, community contributed high-level science products (HLSPs), such as the Hubble Image Similarity Project (HISP), Catalog Of Ultraviolet Variables Observed By GALEX (GFCAT), and observations of Jupiter and Uranus with HST through Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL).

Improved quick looks using Jdaviz.

To help users explore all of our holdings more intuitively, MAST has integrated the Jdaviz suite into the search portal for quick-look visualization. Tools like lcviz allow users to preview Kepler and TESS light curves directly in the browser, and imviz is available to explore images without having to download the data first (see an example). 

Recent community outreach events for archival data science.

In addition to infrastructure and data services, MAST is strengthening its investment in community engagement and training. This year, MAST held workshops at both the winter and summer AAS meetings. This fall, MAST will host a new workshop in collaboration with professors at Villanova University, targeting undergraduate and graduate students who are new to astronomy. This event is designed to lower the barrier to entry for archival science and to foster data literacy at all career stages. MAST welcomes opportunities to expand these workshops to other institutions or research communities (contact us today). Archival research is a powerful way to get started in astronomical research, and MAST aims to empower the next generation of scientists by making it easier to turn public data into discoveries.

See everything MAST offers, including our latest news updates.

News and Public Outreach at STScI

By Denise Smith and Christine Pulliam

The Office of Public Outreach (OPO) is made up of a deeply experienced team of astronomers, education and community engagement specialists, science writers, media specialists, visualization and imaging specialists, designers, web content managers, and software engineers. We collaborate to produce tailored products and services that communicate Hubble and Webb’s scientific discoveries, explain the upcoming science of Roman, and support the science community developing the Habitable Worlds Observatory concept. Everything we release is free and may be used in any presentation.

In the first half of 2025, the OPO news team published 44 press releases sharing groundbreaking discoveries and new images from Hubble and Webb, as well as science that will be enabled by Roman. Seven of these stories were featured in press conferences at the January and June meetings of the American Astronomical Society. One notable release honored Webb’s third anniversary of science: The telescope’s near-infrared image examined part of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a massive star-forming region. From this image, our visualization team constructed an immersive 3D tour of its dusty caverns and massive stars. In total, these releases resulted in more than 11,000 articles and other mentions in worldwide media outlets. Scientists with potentially newsworthy results using Hubble or Webb are encouraged to reach out to the STScI news team using these instructions or via email.

In July, the news team hosted a science writers’ workshop in conjunction with the STScI-hosted symposium “Cosmic Cartography with Roman: Advances in Galaxy Structures, Distributions, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy” and supported media attending “Towards the Habitable Worlds Observatory: Visionary Science and Transformational Technology” in Washington, D.C.

Through NASA’s Universe of Learning, our public outreach team produced and released three ViewSpace Interactive Image Tours, new, dynamic ways for the public to explore breathtaking telescope images. ViewSpace has a long track record of providing museums, science centers, libraries, and other informal learning environments free, web-based videos, and digital interactives. Resources like these have long been valued by informal learning sites as effective means to engage and intrigue visitors.

Our scientists continue to host virtual public talks, now through the Deep Space Dialogues series, by speaking to scientists about the tiny red dots  that keep appearing in Webb’s images, stellar explosions, and Roman’s upcoming science. We’ve also produced and released videos to showcase what Roman is capable of, including mapping distant galaxies to gain insight into dark matter and dark energy, seeing changes like exploding stars across more of the sky, more quickly, and at a high resolution, and exploring the heart of our own Milky Way galaxy and our cosmic backyard.

For real-time updates about our press releases and products, follow our social accounts: Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, BlueSky, and LinkedIn.

In Case You Missed It

• Roman’s Core Community Surveys Are Now Defined
• STScI Co-administers 2025 NHFP Astrophysics Fellowships
• STScI Astronomer Carol Christian Elected AAAS Fellow
• JWST Cycle 4 TAC Results
• What Are Hubble and Webb Observing Right Now?
• Recollect: STScI’s New Digital Collections Portal
• STScI’s Rick White Named AAS Fellow
• Meeting of Hubble’s Space Telescope Users Committee (STUC)

Upcoming and Recent Events at STScI

Attend upcoming workshops, symposia, and other astronomy community events — and find recordings and information from past events — that are organized by STScI in Baltimore, Maryland.

Join or Revisit STScI Events