Frameworks: an ecosystem of services for multi-messenger and time domain science

The National Science Foundation Division of Physics awarded Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Inc., $676,261 on October 1, 2026, under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to enhance the Target and Observation Manager (TOM) Toolkit, a web-based cyberinfrastructure platform for multi-messenger and time-domain astronomy research.

The TOM Toolkit enables scientists to analyze electromagnetic, gravitational wave, and neutrino detector data from multiple sources and coordinate follow-up observations across petabyte-scale survey datasets from facilities including the Legacy Survey of Space and Time at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, IceCube neutrino detectors, and related instruments worldwide. This award funds three primary enhancements: upgrading the toolkit to handle increased data volume and interactions with LSST data sources, improving data analysis pipelines through modern machine learning methods, and streamlining deployments on commercial clouds and NSF-funded computing systems. The recipient will also expand professional and citizen science community support through updated documentation, tutorials, and technical assistance.

Place of performance is Goleta, California. The period of performance runs through September 30, 2029. Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Inc., is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization operating a global network of robotic telescopes that supports time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy research through open-source software tools and cyberinfrastructure.

Abstract

Science has an unprecedented opportunity to explore astronomical and astrophysical phenomena through the complementary capabilities of multiple groundbreaking survey facilities. These include the legacy survey of space and time (lsst) at the vera c. Reuben observatory, neutrino detectors like icecube, and the gravitational wave detecting network formed by the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (ligo) and related instruments in europe and japan. Modern surveys now provide a wealth of real-time discoveries from electromagnetic, gravitational wave and neutrino detectors, disseminated via high-throughput streaming services. These petabyte-scale survey data products are useful only if downstream researchers can characterize the discoveries. To enable the scientific community to realize the full scientific potential of these surveys, the project team has produced the target and observation manager (TOM) toolkit, which is web-based cyberinfrastructure that enables communities of scientists to analyze data from multiple sources. The toolkit further enables scientists to coordinate follow-up observations that are necessary to fully characterize the discoveries. Building on prior work, this project improves the usability and capabilities of the TOM toolkit by upgrading IT to support the increased scale needed to handle interactions with lsst data sources; by improving toolkit data analysis pipelines using modern machine learning methods; and by streamlining deployments on commercial clouds and NSF-funded computing systems. The project will support and grow the toolkit?s professional and citizen science user community through updated documentation, tutorials, and community support. In order to achieve the wealth of science that is possible through the current and future generations of astronomical and astrophysical survey instruments, researchers need to collate and analyze information rapidly, at scale, and continuously. Since survey data alone are often insufficient to fully understand the underlying physics, researchers need to orchestrate follow-up observations in a timely manner using a range of telescope facilities. This project provides science teams with modern, scalable, customizable, and extensible cyberinfrastructure to manage their data and analysis, with application programming interfaces (apis) to key external services such as alert brokers, data archives and telescope facilities. This project delivers a software framework designed to make IT easy for science users to create and customize a database-driven web application to orchestrate their research program. The package provides a fully functional django-based web application with browser-based data exploration and visualization tools to enable a wide range of science, plus a range of interfaces to essential external services. This project extends the core package to integrate user data analysis workflows and advanced data analysis tools such as large language models. The project will add apis to enable researchers to create and manage citizen science programs through the zooniverse platform. This award by the office of advanced cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the physics at the information frontier program within the physics section of the directorate for mathematical and physical sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.