Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope The Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is an 8– to 16.8–meter UV-optical-NIR space telescope proposed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). If launched, ATLAST would be a replacement and successor for the HST, with the ability to obtain spectroscopic and imaging observations of astronomical objects in the ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths, but with substantially better resolution than either HST or the planned James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Like JWST, ATLAST would be launched to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point. ATLAST is envisioned as
Hubble Space Telescope working life, and the concurrent development of plans for the reusable Space Shuttle indicated that the technology to allow this was soon to become available. The continuing success of the OAO program encouraged increasingly strong consensus within the astronomical community that the LST should be a major goal. In 1970, NASA established two committees, one to plan the engineering side of the space telescope project, and the other to determine the scientific goals of the mission. Once these had been established, the next hurdle for NASA was to obtain funding for the instrument, which would be far more costly than