NASA IRTF Strategic Planning – Seeking Community Input
24 February 2026
The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) 10-year strategic plan is being developed. The plan will cover an important period for observatories on Maunakea. It will ensure that IRTF continues to be a leading facility for researchers in planetary science and astrophysics as JWST makes more ground breaking discoveries and Rubin, Roman, NEO Surveyor and other facilities, both ground and space based, begin producing vast amounts of data.
IRTF is a facility open to anyone, regardless of affiliation. We are seeking broad community input on the evolution of the scientific landscape, science priorities and cases, the roadmap for new capabilities and ideas for new instrumentation, enhancements to operations and training, and improvements to the archive, to chart the course for IRTF for the next decade.
A survey has been developed to gather inputs from across the planetary science and astrophysics research communities. The time to respond to the survey is limited and we encourage everyone with an interest in IRTF to provide their input as soon as possible.
Everyone that completes the survey can participate in a prize draw for an observing session with IRTF that includes full support and training for planning, conducting and reducing the observations.
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