About LSST Discovery Alliance


The LSST Discovery Alliance (LSST-DA) aims to maximize the scientific and societal impact of Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). We deliver programs and facilitate resources and funding to help researchers analyze and draw meaning from this vast stream of rich, complex data. 

  • We are an independent nonprofit supported by member institution dues, grants from foundations, and donations from corporations and private donors.

  • Our bold programs foster interdisciplinary, inclusive collaboration to accelerate transformative scientific breakthroughs.

  • We leverage our deep connections across the Rubin LSST ecosystem to enable scientific discoveries that no single institution could do alone.

A joint endeavor of the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), will begin once the state-of-the-art Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is completed in 2025. The observatory and camera were designed to produce the widest, deepest, and most complete map of the Universe at incredible speed. Over ten years, LSST will collect nearly 1000 images of every star and galaxy over half of the sky, helping scientists understand our dynamic Universe. In its first year alone, this survey will map more of the sky than all previous maps combined, launching a revolution in our understanding of the Universe.

Rubin Obs./NSF/AURA/W. O’Mullane
Credit: Rubin Obs./NSF/AURA/W. O’Mullane

Our History

LSST Inc. was founded in 2003 as a not-for-profit 501(c)3 Arizona corporation to initiate the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project (now the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Project, which will carry out the Legacy Survey of Space & Time) and to advance the science of astronomy and physics. For 20 years, LSST Inc. has led evolving aspects of the design, development, and scientific preparation for LSST. 

Our Role

Now renamed LSST Discovery Alliance (LSST-DA), our organization has a well-established role in the Rubin LSST ecosystem—supporting the Rubin LSST science community through private funding and programs that complement NSF’s and DOE’s federal investment in the construction and operations of LSST. We are organizationally distinct from the Rubin Observatory teams that are constructing and will operate the Rubin Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).