Survey Progress

Current status: Rubin Observatory is in a period of early operations optimization known as Pre-LSST.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is due to begin shortly, when a set of performance criteria have been met. See RTN-093 for more information.

Nightly Scheduler Reports (updated daily) are available throughout early operations, with an archive dating back to June 2025. These include a summary of observations taken, along side pre-night simulations of that night and a comparison of the actual visits against predictions.

Pre-LSST

Following the handover from the Construction Project in late October 2025, Rubin Observatory has been in a period of early operations optimization known colloquially as “Pre-LSST”. Observations during this period, October 2025 to present, have been a mixture of intensive engineering time and Feature Based Scheduler (FBS) driven “Pre-LSST” observations.

• Pre-LSST Overview
  • Data Preview 2 (DP2)
  • Pre-LSST 20260619

2025 Science Validation Survey

The Rubin Construction Project’s Commissioning team executed the Science Validation (SV) survey described in SITCOMTN-005 section 6 during the last 6 months of the Project, from April to September 2025. Data acquired during this commissioning period will be released as part of Data Preview 2 (DP2), described in RTN-011.

The SV survey progress pages were updated weekly and contained forecast information, as well as current status.

• Science Validation Survey Overview
  • SV 20250621
  • SV 20250628
  • SV 20250705
  • SV 20250712
  • SV 20250714
  • SV 20250720
  • SV 20250723
  • SV 20250724
  • SV 20250729
  • SV 20250818
  • SV 20250903
  • SV 20250920
  • Summary 20250930

Last Updated

Last Updated 2026/06/22