The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), the first project to be undertaken
at the new Vera Rubin Observatory, will be the most comprehensive optical astronomical
survey ever undertaken. Starting in 2024, Rubin Observatory will obtain panoramic images
covering the sky visible from its location in Chile every clear night for ten years.
The resulting hundreds of petabytes of imaging data, essentially a digital color movie
of the night sky, will include about 40 billion stars and galaxies, and will be used for investigations ranging from cataloging dangerous near-Earth asteroids to fundamental
physics such as characterization of dark matter and dark energy.
I will start my presentation with an overview of LSST science drivers and system design,
and continue with a construction status report for the Vera Rubin Observatory. I will
conclude with a brief discussion of a few Big Data challenges that need to be addressed
before LSST data can be used for precise cosmological measurements.
