Execute a balanced science program based on discipline-specific guidance from the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine administration priorities and direction from congress

NASA's Shared Services Center awarded the Space Telescope Science Institute, a division of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., $484,242 on February 1, 2026 for execution of a balanced science program under the Science program (CFDA 43.001), with work running through January 31, 2028.

STScI is developing next-generation crowded field stellar photometry tools and point-spread function (PSF) production infrastructure to support fitting algorithms and source measurement analysis scaled to Roman Space Telescope survey data. The University of Washington, through its Office of Sponsored Programs, functions as a sub-recipient and is developing PSF-production and library infrastructure, model source addition functions for testing accuracy and completeness of recovered sources, and Python wrapper scripts to measure photometry on test data for accuracy and speed validation prior to Roman survey data analysis.

Performance occurs at STScI's Baltimore, Maryland facility. The award is classified as a Project Grant.

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